Product / UX / UI & API

SillyTavern

Self-hosted chat front end for character and roleplay use, forked from TavernAI in 2023. It runs on Node.js and connects to many backends including KoboldAI, OpenAI, Claude and Mistral, with deep prompt engineering, lorebooks, group chats, image generation, text-to-speech, extensions and a visual-novel mode.

Verified 2026-08-13 via the SillyTavern/SillyTavern repository.

Openness

5 high confidence

5.0

license: AGPL-3.0(OSI, copyleft)
source: public(github.com/SillyTavern/SillyTavern)
self-host: only(local install)
extensions: third-party
core-gated: ungated

AGPL-3.0 (OSI-approved copyleft), full source public, self-host only, fully open. No proprietary/SaaS tier.

https://github.com/SillyTavern/SillyTavern recorded 2026-08-13
AGPL-3.0; public source; v1.18.0 (3 May 2026); local UI for LLM/image/TTS backends

Adoption

3 low confidence

3.0

No published download, install or active-user count exists for a self-hosted desktop app that collects no telemetry, so GitHub stars are the only honest signal available. SillyTavern/SillyTavern shows 32,056 stars and the README states over 300 contributors, which falls in the >10K stars band, level 3 on the stars scale - and a stars-based band cannot exceed level 3, because a star is attention rather than use. The real community is likely a large enthusiast and roleplay base, but nothing measures it.

https://github.com/SillyTavern/SillyTavern recorded 2026-08-13
28.9k stars, 300+ contributors; no install/usage count published

Capability

3 medium confidence

3.0

Feature-rich for its niche, broad backend coverage, image-gen/TTS, extensions, character/roleplay tooling (Visual Novel mode). Specialized toward roleplay rather than general-purpose assistant work; mid-tier on the general chat-UI matrix.

https://github.com/SillyTavern/SillyTavern recorded 2026-08-13
multi-backend, image-gen, TTS, extensions, Visual Novel mode

Verified 2026-08-13