# Kotaemon vs LightRAG

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** LightRAG

| Attribute | Kotaemon | LightRAG |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 47.4 (55% (medium)) | 61.7 (53% (medium)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | 0 | 100 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | 0 | 0 |
| adoption.github_stars | 25,797 | 40,136 |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"A tool that enables users to interact with their documents through AI-powered retrieval and generation. Built for both individual users seeking answers from documents and developers building custom retrieval-augmented generation systems. It is indexed under RAG Tools.","source":"https://cinnamon.github.io/kotaemon","question":"What is Kotaemon?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Kotaemon supports the web, Windows, macOS, Linux and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://cinnamon.github.io/kotaemon","question":"What platforms does Kotaemon support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Kotaemon can be deployed self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://cinnamon.github.io/kotaemon","question":"Can Kotaemon be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 7 integrations for Kotaemon, including OpenAI, Cohere, Ollama, Groq, VoyageAI, Docling and Gradio. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://cinnamon.github.io/kotaemon","question":"What does Kotaemon integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. Kotaemon is published under the Apache-2.0 licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/cinnamon/kotaemon","question":"Is Kotaemon open source?","confidence":0.95}]` | `[{"answer":"A lightweight RAG system that processes documents through flexible parsing engines and supports local deployment of embedding, reranking, and storage backends. Includes built-in citation attribution and can work with various open-source LLMs and embedding models. It is indexed under RAG Tools.","source":"https://github.com/pricing","question":"What is LightRAG?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"LightRAG supports the web and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://github.com/pricing","question":"What platforms does LightRAG support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. LightRAG can be deployed cloud / SaaS, on-premise and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://github.com/pricing","question":"Can LightRAG be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. LightRAG is published under the MIT licence, a permissive licence that generally allows commercial use and modification. Licence terms can change between releases, so verify against the repository for the version you intend to use.","source":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG","question":"Is LightRAG open source?","confidence":0.95}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"self_hosted":true}` | `{"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A RAG platform designed for both end users performing document analysis and developers building custom AI-powered QA systems. Offers a web-based interface with support for multiple LLMs, embedding models, and document formats. | An open-source RAG system designed for high scalability that uses both knowledge graphs and vector search to retrieve information from large datasets with reduced computational overhead and faster response times. |
| features.capabilities | `{"open_source":true,"multimodal_rag":true,"hybrid_retrieval":true,"citation_attribution":true,"llm_provider_agnostic":true,"reranking_integration":true,"managed_ingestion_pipeline":true,"embedding_provider_agnostic":true,"multi_hop_agentic_retrieval":true}` | `{"open_source":true,"multimodal_rag":true,"hybrid_retrieval":true,"citation_attribution":true,"llm_provider_agnostic":true,"reranking_integration":true,"managed_ingestion_pipeline":true,"embedding_provider_agnostic":true,"multi_hop_agentic_retrieval":false}` |
| integrations.count | 9 | 9 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"OpenAI"},{"name":"AzureOpenAI"},{"name":"Cohere"},{"name":"Ollama"},{"name":"Groq"},{"name":"VoyageAI"},{"name":"Docling"},{"name":"Gradio"},{"name":"Azure OpenAI","native":true,"category":"ai"},{"name":"LanceDB","native":true},{"name":"GraphRAG","native":true}]` | `[{"name":"PostgreSQL","native":true,"category":"storage"},{"name":"Neo4j","native":true,"category":"storage"},{"name":"MongoDB","native":true,"category":"storage"},{"name":"Milvus","native":true,"category":"storage"},{"name":"Qdrant","native":true,"category":"storage"},{"name":"Redis","native":true,"category":"storage"},{"name":"Memgraph","native":true,"category":"storage"},{"name":"MinerU","native":true},{"name":"Docling","native":true}]` |
| language.primary | Python | Python |
| license.spdx | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| platform.support | `{"web":true}` | `{"cli":true,"mac":true,"web":true,"linux":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://cinnamon.github.io/kotaemon","retrievedAt":"2026-10-05T10:11:58.150Z"}` | `{"type":"open_source","sourceUrl":"https://github.com/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-09-14T09:25:31.588Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | - |
| pricing.model | open_source | open_source |
| pricing.price_level | free | free |
| release.cadence_days | 5 | 7 |
| release.history | `[{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.12.0","date":"2026-05-31T04:45:39Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.12.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.11.3","date":"2026-03-28T16:30:04Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.11.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.11.2","date":"2026-03-04T10:17:17Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.11.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.11.1","date":"2026-02-27T09:47:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.11.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.11.0","date":"2025-07-04T11:34:28Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.11.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.10.6","date":"2025-04-01T04:32:04Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.10.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.10.4","date":"2025-03-31T14:53:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.10.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.10.3","date":"2025-02-14T14:37:22Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.10.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.10.2","date":"2025-02-05T06:45:30Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.10.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.10.1","date":"2025-02-03T01:10:32Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.10.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.10.0","date":"2025-02-02T08:20:13Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.10.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.9.11","date":"2024-12-24T02:45:38Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.9.11"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.9.10","date":"2024-12-23T02:28:43Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.9.10"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.9.9","date":"2024-12-18T13:28:21Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.9.9"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.9.8","date":"2024-12-17T10:34:23Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.9.8"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.9.6","date":"2024-12-15T16:14:21Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.9.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.9.5","date":"2024-12-07T02:19:44Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.9.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.9.4","date":"2024-12-05T12:56:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.9.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.9.3","date":"2024-12-04T04:10:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.9.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/releases/tag/v0.9.2","date":"2024-11-28T14:13:19Z","type":"stable","version":"v0.9.2"}]` | `[{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.7","date":"2026-09-02T07:23:55Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.7rc2","date":"2026-08-19T07:01:48Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.7rc2"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.7rc1","date":"2026-08-17T06:47:01Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.5.7rc1"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.6","date":"2026-08-06T08:29:47Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.5","date":"2026-07-31T12:07:29Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.5rc1","date":"2026-07-13T19:33:37Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.5.5rc1"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.4","date":"2026-06-24T10:24:01Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.3","date":"2026-06-14T06:21:33Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.2","date":"2026-06-11T06:14:51Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.1","date":"2026-06-09T08:32:30Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.0","date":"2026-06-03T01:54:09Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.5.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.5.0rc3","date":"2026-05-26T09:27:02Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.5.0rc3"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.4.16","date":"2026-05-07T19:34:01Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.16"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.4.15","date":"2026-04-19T08:40:25Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.15"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.4.14","date":"2026-04-12T20:43:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.14"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.4.13","date":"2026-04-02T17:00:24Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.13"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.4.12","date":"2026-03-27T05:52:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.12"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.4.11","date":"2026-03-20T08:41:06Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.11"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.4.11rc2","date":"2026-03-13T06:19:07Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.11rc2"},{"url":"https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/releases/tag/v1.4.10","date":"2026-02-27T07:39:59Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.4.10"}]` |
| security.disclosure_policy | - | yes |
| security.trust_center | - | https://github.com/HKUDS/LightRAG/security |
| security.vulnerabilities | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Fcinnamon%2Fkotaemon&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` | `{"count":10,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=pypi&package_name=lightrag-hku&per_page=100","last_12m":9,"max_severity":"CRITICAL"}` |

## Capabilities (RAG Tools)

| Capability | Kotaemon | LightRAG |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Capabilities** |  |  |
| Hybrid retrieval | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reranking integration | ✓ | ✓ |
| Multi hop agentic retrieval | ✓ | ✗ |
| Embedding provider agnostic | ✓ | ✓ |
| LLM provider agnostic | ✓ | ✓ |
| Built in rag eval metrics | - | - |
| Citation attribution | ✓ | ✓ |
| Multimodal rag | ✓ | ✓ |
| Managed ingestion pipeline | ✓ | ✓ |
| Open source | ✓ | ✓ |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T02:36:05.123Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*