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Chatbox: Cross-platform desktop client for ChatGPT, Claude and other LLMs

110 points by thunderbong 2y ago

brudgers 2y ago
original ShowHN, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35091777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35091777
dawie 2y ago
Very cool
xnx 2y ago
Is this like LM Studio?
- vunderba 2y ago
  Comparable but unlike LM Studio - it's open source.
wkat4242 2y ago
How does it compare to OpenWebUI?
- emptiestplace 2y ago
  LibreChat is probably the one you want to compare to - Claude is not supported by OpenWebUI, and the shim will cost you dearly in terms of tokens.
  - qqqult 2y ago
    can't you use it through litellm https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui/issues/3288 https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui/issues/3288
    - emptiestplace 2y ago
      I think that's probably the shim I was referring to - it has hardcoded context length, but it is either implemented incorrectly, Anthropic ignores it, or maybe it's on openwebui to manage the window and it just isn't? Not sure. I found it kept getting slow, so I was starting new conversations to work around that. Eventually I got suspicious and checked - I'd burned through almost $100 within a few hours. LibreChat isn't as nice in some areas, but it's much more efficient in this regard.
      - wkat4242 2y ago
        I do exactly this, use LiteLLM to bridge it. In fact I use LiteLLM to bridge OpenAI and Groq too. Even though OpenWebUI supports them directly, with LiteLLM I can control better which models I see. Otherwise my model list gets cluttered up. I configured this back when OpenWebUI only supported one OpenAI endpoint but I kept using it because it's just quite handy. And no it doesn't cost extra credits, isn't ignored and doesn't have hardcoded context length. It works perfectly.
        emptiestplace 2y ago
        Sorry, I was mistaken about having used LiteLLM - this is the one I was using: https://github.com/wangxj03/ai-cookbook.git https://github.com/wangxj03/ai-cookbook.git, and you can see the hardcoded shit here: https://github.com/wangxj03/ai-cookbook/blob/main/anthropic-webui/src/chat.py https://github.com/wangxj03/ai-cookbook/blob/main/anthropic-... - it does not actually restrict anything though, and like I said, I noticed it was getting slow when it was sending 100-200K token requests. Also, it's pretty easy to find unresolved bugs related to openwebui not handling context length parameters correctly - I believe I actually read something from the author saying that this parameter is effectively disabled (for non-local LLMs maybe?).
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    Oh yes for Claude I use LiteLLM as a proxy to use it with OpenWebUI. I'll try librechat too (never heard of it before) but I wonder if it has the same capabilities like voice and python tools. And ollama support (95% of my AI interactions are running locally)
emptiestplace 2y ago
There is very little I find more frustrating than software that could so easily be nice to use but isn't.
- theyinwhy 2y ago
  Would be great to learn what's your view on Chatbox in that regard.
  - emptiestplace 2y ago
    Needs some usability testing - I suspect even five minutes of watching a non-technical user trying to use it would be very illuminating. UI is unintuitive throughout. Consider, one of the most frequent actions you will ever do in this type of app is start a new conversation, and here it is represented by a little button near the bottom of the sidebar where you might look for 'Settings' - apparently collapsing the sidebar is much more important. Tiny text, low contrast text, confusing collapsing/expanding sections, lack of whitespace and/or colour to differentiate message pair halves, confusing hover actions for copy, no floating or bottom of code block copy button... I'm pretty sure configuring API keys was weird for some reason as well, but I can't remember what it was.
theyinwhy 2y ago
Hi, congrats to your product! At the top of the website you are saying "Whether it's documents, images, or code, just send your files to Chatbox." At the bottom you state "Everything stays on your device, giving you full control and peace of mind." What is it then?
- mercer 2y ago
  it's local, but I can see how the wording is ambiguous (not the author, so I can't vouch that there is no secret shenanigans)
auggierose 2y ago
Am using that for more than half a year now, very happy with it. The update process to get a new version is a mess though, with the update notification popping up four or more times usually.
reckless 2y ago
Been a long time user of Chatbox as my Android client of choice. The recent web search update has been fantastic!
funcimp 2y ago
Missed opportunity not naming this ChatterBox.
sigismund 2y ago
I would avoid using Chatbox. If I remember correctly the releases in the past were built from code that is not in the repo and also there were unadressed issue with the license and positive VirusTotal scans. There are other alternative tools out there that are less shady. One example would be jan.ai
- viraptor 2y ago
  I don't know if anything's actually changed here, but the issues discussing that and mentioning GPL are gone. Not "closed, fixed", but deleted instead. The author was claiming they delay the source release to prevent other projects from copying them, but argued with anyone raising the issue of that not being GPL compliant. It does not smell good. The code currently says it's 0.10.4 (repo is for "community edition"), but the website changelog says 1.9.2.
TheHippo 2y ago
File uploads don't work and the Linux Appimage won't start.
rkagerer 2y ago
Side question: For user without accounts, did ChatGPT start gating repeat visitors to its chat site behind some kind of supercookie or server-detected unique identifier? Used to be able to throw a quick query at their site, now it just pushes me to a signup page (even after clearing cookies, incognito, etc). So much for this announcement? https://openai.com/index/start-using-chatgpt-instantly/ https://openai.com/index/start-using-chatgpt-instantly/

110 points by thunderbong 2y ago

brudgers 2y ago

original ShowHN, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35091777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35091777

dawie 2y ago

Very cool

xnx 2y ago

Is this like LM Studio?

vunderba 2y ago
Comparable but unlike LM Studio - it's open source.

wkat4242 2y ago

How does it compare to OpenWebUI?

emptiestplace 2y ago
LibreChat is probably the one you want to compare to - Claude is not supported by OpenWebUI, and the shim will cost you dearly in terms of tokens.
- qqqult 2y ago
  can't you use it through litellm https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui/issues/3288 https://github.com/open-webui/open-webui/issues/3288
  - emptiestplace 2y ago
    I think that's probably the shim I was referring to - it has hardcoded context length, but it is either implemented incorrectly, Anthropic ignores it, or maybe it's on openwebui to manage the window and it just isn't? Not sure. I found it kept getting slow, so I was starting new conversations to work around that. Eventually I got suspicious and checked - I'd burned through almost $100 within a few hours. LibreChat isn't as nice in some areas, but it's much more efficient in this regard.
    - wkat4242 2y ago
      I do exactly this, use LiteLLM to bridge it. In fact I use LiteLLM to bridge OpenAI and Groq too. Even though OpenWebUI supports them directly, with LiteLLM I can control better which models I see. Otherwise my model list gets cluttered up. I configured this back when OpenWebUI only supported one OpenAI endpoint but I kept using it because it's just quite handy. And no it doesn't cost extra credits, isn't ignored and doesn't have hardcoded context length. It works perfectly.
      - emptiestplace 2y ago
        Sorry, I was mistaken about having used LiteLLM - this is the one I was using: https://github.com/wangxj03/ai-cookbook.git https://github.com/wangxj03/ai-cookbook.git, and you can see the hardcoded shit here: https://github.com/wangxj03/ai-cookbook/blob/main/anthropic-webui/src/chat.py https://github.com/wangxj03/ai-cookbook/blob/main/anthropic-... - it does not actually restrict anything though, and like I said, I noticed it was getting slow when it was sending 100-200K token requests. Also, it's pretty easy to find unresolved bugs related to openwebui not handling context length parameters correctly - I believe I actually read something from the author saying that this parameter is effectively disabled (for non-local LLMs maybe?).
- wkat4242 2y ago
  Oh yes for Claude I use LiteLLM as a proxy to use it with OpenWebUI. I'll try librechat too (never heard of it before) but I wonder if it has the same capabilities like voice and python tools. And ollama support (95% of my AI interactions are running locally)

emptiestplace 2y ago

There is very little I find more frustrating than software that could so easily be nice to use but isn't.

theyinwhy 2y ago
Would be great to learn what's your view on Chatbox in that regard.
- emptiestplace 2y ago
  Needs some usability testing - I suspect even five minutes of watching a non-technical user trying to use it would be very illuminating. UI is unintuitive throughout. Consider, one of the most frequent actions you will ever do in this type of app is start a new conversation, and here it is represented by a little button near the bottom of the sidebar where you might look for 'Settings' - apparently collapsing the sidebar is much more important. Tiny text, low contrast text, confusing collapsing/expanding sections, lack of whitespace and/or colour to differentiate message pair halves, confusing hover actions for copy, no floating or bottom of code block copy button... I'm pretty sure configuring API keys was weird for some reason as well, but I can't remember what it was.

theyinwhy 2y ago

Hi, congrats to your product! At the top of the website you are saying "Whether it's documents, images, or code, just send your files to Chatbox." At the bottom you state "Everything stays on your device, giving you full control and peace of mind." What is it then?

mercer 2y ago
it's local, but I can see how the wording is ambiguous (not the author, so I can't vouch that there is no secret shenanigans)

auggierose 2y ago

Am using that for more than half a year now, very happy with it. The update process to get a new version is a mess though, with the update notification popping up four or more times usually.

reckless 2y ago

Been a long time user of Chatbox as my Android client of choice. The recent web search update has been fantastic!

funcimp 2y ago

Missed opportunity not naming this ChatterBox.

sigismund 2y ago

I would avoid using Chatbox. If I remember correctly the releases in the past were built from code that is not in the repo and also there were unadressed issue with the license and positive VirusTotal scans. There are other alternative tools out there that are less shady. One example would be jan.ai

viraptor 2y ago
I don't know if anything's actually changed here, but the issues discussing that and mentioning GPL are gone. Not "closed, fixed", but deleted instead. The author was claiming they delay the source release to prevent other projects from copying them, but argued with anyone raising the issue of that not being GPL compliant. It does not smell good. The code currently says it's 0.10.4 (repo is for "community edition"), but the website changelog says 1.9.2.

TheHippo 2y ago

File uploads don't work and the Linux Appimage won't start.

rkagerer 2y ago

Side question: For user without accounts, did ChatGPT start gating repeat visitors to its chat site behind some kind of supercookie or server-detected unique identifier? Used to be able to throw a quick query at their site, now it just pushes me to a signup page (even after clearing cookies, incognito, etc). So much for this announcement? https://openai.com/index/start-using-chatgpt-instantly/ https://openai.com/index/start-using-chatgpt-instantly/