THthemez·Jan 8, 2026Submission
Open source project chatbox is under attack
2 points · Open discussionchatboxai
chatbox
TypeScript2023–2026
chatboxai / chatbox
chatbox
Powerful AI Client
14Distinct people
18Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
42.3KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Powerful AI Client
GitHub
Where it is used
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:03:16 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year18 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2023-03-08 14:51:33 UTC to 2026-01-08 07:42:47 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 3 | 3 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 3 | 2 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 3 | 3 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
What Hacker News says
18 sourcesHow does this compare to the already established open source solutions such as Chatbox (https://github.com/chatboxai/chatbox), or Lobechat (https://github.com/lobehub/lobe-chat)?
Been using both, like Chatbox for how snappy it is, but is local only, vs Lobechat which allows you to setup centralized host to have shared host across clients but feels a bit clunkier.
In OSS Alternative to Open WebUI – ChatGPT-Like UI, API and CLICompile it yourself https://github.com/chatboxai/chatbox
In Chatbox app is back on the US app storeChatbox app is back on the US app store
70 points · Open discussionI've been in the same quest for a while. Here's my list, not a recommendation or endorsement list, just a list of alternative clients I've considered, tried or am still evaluating:
- chatbox - https://github.com/chatboxai/chatbox - free and OSS, with a paid tier, supports MCP and local/remote, has a local KB, works well so far and looks promising.
- macai - https://github.com/Renset/macai simple client for remote APIs, does not support image pasting or MCP or anything really, very limited, crashes.
- typingmind.com - web, with a downloadable (if paid) version. Not OSS, but one-time payment, indie dev. One of the first alt chat clients I've ever tried, not using it anymore. Somewhat clunky gui, but ok. Supports MCP, haven't tried it it.
- Open WebUI - deployed for our team so that we could chat through many APIs. Works well for a multi-use
Read the rest
r web-deployment, but image generation hasn't been working. I don't like it as a personal client though, buggy sometimes but gets frequent fixes fortunately.
- jan.ai - it comes with popular models pre-populated listed, which makes it harder to plug into custom or local model servers. But it supports local model deployment within the app (like what ollama is announcing) which is good for people who don't want to deal with starting a server. I haven't played with it enough, but I personally prefer to deploy a local server (ie ollama, litellm...) and then just have the chat gui app give me a flexible endpoint configuration for adding custom models to it.
I'm also wary of evil actors deploying chat GUIs just to farm your API keys. You should be too. Use disposable api keys, watch usage, refresh with new keys once in a while after trying clients.
Chatbox: User-Friendly Desktop Client App for AI Models/LLMs
2 points · Open discussionChatbox: Cross-platform desktop client for ChatGPT, Claude and other LLMs
110 points · Open discussionI'm very interested in checking something like this out for getting to grips with a local codebase of unfamiliar SQL and assorted scripts and reports.
I have a few tabs open that I haven't had a chance to try:
https://github.com/Mintplex-Labs/anything-llm
https://github.com/Bin-Huang/chatbox
https://github.com/saeedezzati/superpower-chatgpt
In Ask HN: Local RAG with private knowledge baseHow does this differ from chatboxai?
https://github.com/Bin-Huang/chatbox
In Show HN: AnythingLLM – Open-Source, All-in-One Desktop AI AssistantAsk HN: Chatbox (GPT desktop front end) malware / supply chain attack risk?
Hey HN, supply chain evaluation question:
There is this awesome desktop app called chatbox: https://chatboxai.app/ <- which I've been using for about 3 months now; essentially, it's a desktop front-end for chatgpt API with very good local search across all previous conversations.
Two red flags:
* 1, https://github.com/Bin-Huang the author is Chinese, from China, working at Tencent.
* 2, As many other desktop apps, this also auto-updates; however:
* https://github.com/Bin-Huang/chatbox/issues/803 he had, essentially, started distributing binary-only updates, and the source code on github no longer reflects the actual app that is automatically downloaded to my computer
This is sus. How sus is it. Specifically: the attack vector I'm querying for is supply-chain attack via the auto-update mechanism. This thing has 20K stars on github, and
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around ~250K visits on their website (15% of this from the US = ~36K US visits per month;) probably predominantly devs. This is a very juicy target.
(Alternatively, and instant-upvote: looking for a desktop frontend for chatgpt API which has built-in full-text search for 2mb of plaintext, and integration for the full suite of LLMs currently available on the market, from a reliable source, for windows please.)
Tell HN: Chatbox (latest versions) is not open source; AskHN: anything similar?
1 points · Open discussionChatbox: A cross-platform desktop client for ChatGPT, Claude and other LLMs
1 points · Open discussionget API access and use https://github.com/Bin-Huang/chatbox when the web UI is down.
In ChatGPT web and mobile UIs unavailableWhat's your favorite interface for GPT API?
When you use OpenAI GPT API, you want an interface where you can quickly change model used, temperature, etc. and get results with nice formatting.
There might be extra features like prompt library/templates, text to speech, etc.
Also, ways to send long chat history to the API without exceeding the context limit.
So what's you favorite? Free or paid.
For me, I found Chatbox [1] to be good for now. I tried ChatGPT Next Web [2] which seems to have advanced features but I couldn't learn how they work because most of the documentation is in Chinese. I tried Lore [3] a while ago and it seemed to have a great UX but when I wanted to try it again, I found that my trial was over and couldn't try it more nor know if it's still being updated.
[1] https://github.com/Bin-Huang/chatbox
[2] https://github.com/Yidadaa/ChatGPT-Next-Web/
[3] https://thel
Read the rest
lm.app/
I am currently using https://github.com/Bin-Huang/chatbox. It ticks some of the boxes you've mentioned.
In Ask HN: What GPT4 frontend do you use?Showing the 15 most recent of 18 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.