4 ms·

ClickHouse acquires LibreChat, open-source AI chat platform

118 points by samaysharma 11mo ago

fishgoesblub 11mo ago
Nearly had a heart attack until I re-read it. I thought Libera Chat[0] was acquired [0] https://libera.chat/ https://libera.chat/
- arccy 11mo ago
  I was wondering how it could acquire something that was formed as a reaction against freenode getting acquired...
  - tuhgdetzhh 11mo ago
    History repeats itself. I wouldn't be suprised.
- tylerhannan 11mo ago
  Nothing worse than having to update my IRC clients again ;)
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
afavour 11mo ago
The part I suspect most are here for: - LibreChat remains 100% open-source under its existing MIT license - Community-first development continues with the same transparency and openness of course, no binding commitment to any of that in the long term.
- tuhgdetzhh 11mo ago
  Yup, they will of course try to profit long-term, ClickHouse is not a charity project. Within the next few years, it will introduce an additional enterprise edition, a SaaS offering, or a change in licensing terms.
  - tylerhannan 11mo ago
    We aren't a charity. But, we are also a database provider. Ryadh mentions some examples below where we have joined forces, incorporated code into ClickHouse Cloud (our commercial offering), and OSS has grown. Time will tell (I can't predict future)...but I'm excited about the future of OSS LibreChat. (disclaimer: I work at ClickHouse)
- saberience 11mo ago
  Of course they wouldn’t announce acquisition and a license change at the same time but this is obviously the beginning of the end. See Hashicorp and Elasticsearch for the same old story. Luckily these kinds of products are a dime a dozen, ie zero technical complexity and there are so many similar projects already out there. Hell you can even vibe code this kind of project.
ryadh 11mo ago
Ryadh from ClickHouse here, happy to answers questions if folks have any. So, why this move ? Basically, we noticed that the existing "agentic" open-source ecosystem is primarily focused on developer tools and SDKs, as developers are the early adopters who build the foundation for emerging technologies. Current projects provide frameworks, orchestration, and integrations The idea behind the Agentic Data Stack is a higher-level integration to provide a composable software stack for agentic analytics that users can setup quicky, with room for customization.
- redwood 11mo ago
  Cool so your bet is that chat is essentially the new interface for BI... or ad hoc analytical inquiry... which opens up more dynamic BI... instead of asking an analyst in a slack conversation who then goes and runs a bunch of data pulls and munging, it's all handled agentically and a response is brought back to the user.. one thing is for sure: Tableau needs to be disrupted so happy to watch this one play out!
  - ryadh 11mo ago
    It actually comes from our own experience at ClickHouse. We deployed this stack internally 8 months ago, and since very few people here have touched our legacy BI systems :) I have never seen an adoption curve like this one tbh. It's obviously not perfect and can hallucinate sometimes, which can be tricky, but with the right approach and awareness in place, the value it delivers is massive. What really happens is that more users get access to data instantly, and as a result, we make better, data-driven, decisions overall. My favourite use-case: our sales and support folks systematically ask DWAINE (our dwh agent) to produce a report before important meetings with customers, something along the lines of: "I'm meeting with <customer_name> for a QBR, what do I need to know?". This will pull usage data, support interactions, billing, and many other dimensions, and you can guess that the quality of the conversation is greatly improved. My colleague Dmitry wrote about it when we first deployed it: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bi-dead-change-my-mind-dmitry-pavlov-2otae/?trackingId=qryVgggcRI%2BDZTUr0dV3Lg%3D%3D https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bi-dead-change-my-mind-dmitry...
ofrzeta 11mo ago
What does it mean to acquire an open source project?
- tylerhannan 11mo ago
  (disclaimer: I work at ClickHouse) At its simplest the team who was building that rad thing called LibreChat, now works at ClickHouse and build that rad thing called LibreChat. Even simpler, the LibreChat team works at ClickHouse and are now my colleagues. More complex, acquisitions can take a variety of "forms"...most importantly in these scenarios (and now I speak without knowledge of the deal structure) is making sure the team is paid, that copyright/trademark stuff is worked out, that OSS plans are discussed, and that everyone is excited to work together.
- swyx 11mo ago
  intellectual property has value and an owner. that ownership can change hands. for money. open source means you have a license to freely use and commercialize it. not that it has no owners.
  - gessha 11mo ago
    I find it more intuitive to talk about it in terms of project governance and control. An OSS project has contributing members and they exert control over the project by working on the codebase and approving/rejecting contributions. If they act as an entity, you can buy their control over the project. The entity that owns the project can now change the license, “sponsor” the contributors by giving them salary, “fire” the contributors, etc.
- righthand 11mo ago
  That there will soon be a new fork of it.
  - tylerhannan 11mo ago
    Why is that? From the post “ LibreChat remains 100% open-source under its existing MIT license Community-first development continues with the same transparency and openness Expanded roadmap to bring an even more enterprise-ready analytics experience. This proven playbook is the same one that we applied when joining forces with PeerDB to provide our ClickPipes CDC capabilities, and HyperDX, which became the UX of our observability product, ClickStack.” Also, I work at ClickHouse, my email is super easy to figure out. Would love to alleviate concerns where I can.
joshstrange 11mo ago
LibreChat was my favorite open source frontend/backend for interacting with LLMs. I know ClickHouse says it will stay that way but I find this acquisition odd to say the least. The overlap seems tenuous at best and I worry this will be abandoned along the way. I hope I'm wrong but the whole thing just is odd, a database acquiring an open source AI tool?
- elaus 11mo ago
  Yeah that's really bad news. I too have LibreChat deployed for my personal use and now the only question is how long until it will inevitably be enshittified/monetized. Must feel even worse for volunteers who worked on the project but don't get any benefit from the aquisition.
  - ryadh 11mo ago
    (Ryadh from ClickHouse here) It's a fair concern, and I understand where you are coming from. What I can say is that it's not our first rodeo incorporating another OSS product in our family. I tried to summarize it in the post: > "This proven playbook is the same one that we applied when joining forces with PeerDB to provide our ClickPipes CDC capabilities, and HyperDX, which became the UX of our observability product, ClickStack." If you research both instances above, the result is that these projects got more traction and adoption overall. I hope this helps! and thank you for using LibreChat
- tylerhannan 11mo ago
  A database in isolation is meaningless. Rather, people have to ask questions of it, and interact with the data. Increasingly, that is via AI tooling. We've had a long-standing demo at llm.clickhouse.com (librechat, bedrock, anthropic). (disclaimer: work at ClickHouse)
  - joshstrange 11mo ago
    > Rather, people have to ask questions of it, and interact with the data. Increasingly, that is via AI tooling. That is, given all my own experiences on that front, terrifying if "increasingly" people are interacting with their data via AI tooling. In all the testing I've done, it can seem like magic "Look, it just told us XXX piece of data and we just asked a simple question!" but LLMs, even with copious amounts of context, are not good at understanding your business rules for understanding your data. And that goes for just about any company with more than "Pet Store"-level complexity (especially after years or decades of the data growing/changing). Perhaps this has improved/changed but I used LLMs daily and nothing indicates to me that it's improved enough to make this worthwhile. Any AI-only interface to data I would assume is either dealing with a laughably simple dataset/schema (or super new) or lying to you constantly.
zerof1l 11mo ago
As a LibreChat user, I'm concerned. I've seen open source projects get acquired like that, and very soon they start to have some kind of paid features, telemetry, etc. Might have to start looking for alternatives soon.
- saberience 11mo ago
  Yep embrace, extend, extinguish.
  - ryadh 11mo ago
    Ryadh from ClickHouse here, I commented below about the overall intent. Let me know if anything needs clarifying!
consumer451 11mo ago
Congrats to Danny!
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
Computer0 11mo ago
Was this acquisitions strategic or because it feels good? How does this help ClickHouse make more money? I hope the librechat dev got a nice payout, I've been selfhosting for about a year.
- tylerhannan 11mo ago
  Check the comments below or the OP. I think Ryadh does a great job of explaining the “why”
heyaco 11mo ago
us spy plant
1812725 11mo ago
[flagged]
1812725 11mo ago
[flagged]

118 points by samaysharma 11mo ago

Nearly had a heart attack until I re-read it. I thought Libera Chat[0] was acquired [0] https://libera.chat/ https://libera.chat/

arccy 11mo ago
I was wondering how it could acquire something that was formed as a reaction against freenode getting acquired...
- tuhgdetzhh 11mo ago
  History repeats itself. I wouldn't be suprised.
tylerhannan 11mo ago
Nothing worse than having to update my IRC clients again ;)

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

afavour 11mo ago

The part I suspect most are here for: - LibreChat remains 100% open-source under its existing MIT license - Community-first development continues with the same transparency and openness of course, no binding commitment to any of that in the long term.

tuhgdetzhh 11mo ago
Yup, they will of course try to profit long-term, ClickHouse is not a charity project. Within the next few years, it will introduce an additional enterprise edition, a SaaS offering, or a change in licensing terms.
- tylerhannan 11mo ago
  We aren't a charity. But, we are also a database provider. Ryadh mentions some examples below where we have joined forces, incorporated code into ClickHouse Cloud (our commercial offering), and OSS has grown. Time will tell (I can't predict future)...but I'm excited about the future of OSS LibreChat. (disclaimer: I work at ClickHouse)
saberience 11mo ago
Of course they wouldn’t announce acquisition and a license change at the same time but this is obviously the beginning of the end. See Hashicorp and Elasticsearch for the same old story. Luckily these kinds of products are a dime a dozen, ie zero technical complexity and there are so many similar projects already out there. Hell you can even vibe code this kind of project.

ryadh 11mo ago

Ryadh from ClickHouse here, happy to answers questions if folks have any. So, why this move ? Basically, we noticed that the existing "agentic" open-source ecosystem is primarily focused on developer tools and SDKs, as developers are the early adopters who build the foundation for emerging technologies. Current projects provide frameworks, orchestration, and integrations The idea behind the Agentic Data Stack is a higher-level integration to provide a composable software stack for agentic analytics that users can setup quicky, with room for customization.

redwood 11mo ago
Cool so your bet is that chat is essentially the new interface for BI... or ad hoc analytical inquiry... which opens up more dynamic BI... instead of asking an analyst in a slack conversation who then goes and runs a bunch of data pulls and munging, it's all handled agentically and a response is brought back to the user.. one thing is for sure: Tableau needs to be disrupted so happy to watch this one play out!
- ryadh 11mo ago
  It actually comes from our own experience at ClickHouse. We deployed this stack internally 8 months ago, and since very few people here have touched our legacy BI systems :) I have never seen an adoption curve like this one tbh. It's obviously not perfect and can hallucinate sometimes, which can be tricky, but with the right approach and awareness in place, the value it delivers is massive. What really happens is that more users get access to data instantly, and as a result, we make better, data-driven, decisions overall. My favourite use-case: our sales and support folks systematically ask DWAINE (our dwh agent) to produce a report before important meetings with customers, something along the lines of: "I'm meeting with <customer_name> for a QBR, what do I need to know?". This will pull usage data, support interactions, billing, and many other dimensions, and you can guess that the quality of the conversation is greatly improved. My colleague Dmitry wrote about it when we first deployed it: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bi-dead-change-my-mind-dmitry-pavlov-2otae/?trackingId=qryVgggcRI%2BDZTUr0dV3Lg%3D%3D https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bi-dead-change-my-mind-dmitry...

ofrzeta 11mo ago

What does it mean to acquire an open source project?

tylerhannan 11mo ago
(disclaimer: I work at ClickHouse) At its simplest the team who was building that rad thing called LibreChat, now works at ClickHouse and build that rad thing called LibreChat. Even simpler, the LibreChat team works at ClickHouse and are now my colleagues. More complex, acquisitions can take a variety of "forms"...most importantly in these scenarios (and now I speak without knowledge of the deal structure) is making sure the team is paid, that copyright/trademark stuff is worked out, that OSS plans are discussed, and that everyone is excited to work together.
swyx 11mo ago
intellectual property has value and an owner. that ownership can change hands. for money. open source means you have a license to freely use and commercialize it. not that it has no owners.
- gessha 11mo ago
  I find it more intuitive to talk about it in terms of project governance and control. An OSS project has contributing members and they exert control over the project by working on the codebase and approving/rejecting contributions. If they act as an entity, you can buy their control over the project. The entity that owns the project can now change the license, “sponsor” the contributors by giving them salary, “fire” the contributors, etc.
righthand 11mo ago
That there will soon be a new fork of it.
- tylerhannan 11mo ago
  Why is that? From the post “ LibreChat remains 100% open-source under its existing MIT license Community-first development continues with the same transparency and openness Expanded roadmap to bring an even more enterprise-ready analytics experience. This proven playbook is the same one that we applied when joining forces with PeerDB to provide our ClickPipes CDC capabilities, and HyperDX, which became the UX of our observability product, ClickStack.” Also, I work at ClickHouse, my email is super easy to figure out. Would love to alleviate concerns where I can.

joshstrange 11mo ago

LibreChat was my favorite open source frontend/backend for interacting with LLMs. I know ClickHouse says it will stay that way but I find this acquisition odd to say the least. The overlap seems tenuous at best and I worry this will be abandoned along the way. I hope I'm wrong but the whole thing just is odd, a database acquiring an open source AI tool?

elaus 11mo ago
Yeah that's really bad news. I too have LibreChat deployed for my personal use and now the only question is how long until it will inevitably be enshittified/monetized. Must feel even worse for volunteers who worked on the project but don't get any benefit from the aquisition.
- ryadh 11mo ago
  (Ryadh from ClickHouse here) It's a fair concern, and I understand where you are coming from. What I can say is that it's not our first rodeo incorporating another OSS product in our family. I tried to summarize it in the post: > "This proven playbook is the same one that we applied when joining forces with PeerDB to provide our ClickPipes CDC capabilities, and HyperDX, which became the UX of our observability product, ClickStack." If you research both instances above, the result is that these projects got more traction and adoption overall. I hope this helps! and thank you for using LibreChat
tylerhannan 11mo ago
A database in isolation is meaningless. Rather, people have to ask questions of it, and interact with the data. Increasingly, that is via AI tooling. We've had a long-standing demo at llm.clickhouse.com (librechat, bedrock, anthropic). (disclaimer: work at ClickHouse)
- joshstrange 11mo ago
  > Rather, people have to ask questions of it, and interact with the data. Increasingly, that is via AI tooling. That is, given all my own experiences on that front, terrifying if "increasingly" people are interacting with their data via AI tooling. In all the testing I've done, it can seem like magic "Look, it just told us XXX piece of data and we just asked a simple question!" but LLMs, even with copious amounts of context, are not good at understanding your business rules for understanding your data. And that goes for just about any company with more than "Pet Store"-level complexity (especially after years or decades of the data growing/changing). Perhaps this has improved/changed but I used LLMs daily and nothing indicates to me that it's improved enough to make this worthwhile. Any AI-only interface to data I would assume is either dealing with a laughably simple dataset/schema (or super new) or lying to you constantly.

zerof1l 11mo ago

As a LibreChat user, I'm concerned. I've seen open source projects get acquired like that, and very soon they start to have some kind of paid features, telemetry, etc. Might have to start looking for alternatives soon.

saberience 11mo ago
Yep embrace, extend, extinguish.
- ryadh 11mo ago
  Ryadh from ClickHouse here, I commented below about the overall intent. Let me know if anything needs clarifying!

consumer451 11mo ago

Congrats to Danny!

deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

Computer0 11mo ago

Was this acquisitions strategic or because it feels good? How does this help ClickHouse make more money? I hope the librechat dev got a nice payout, I've been selfhosting for about a year.

tylerhannan 11mo ago
Check the comments below or the OP. I think Ryadh does a great job of explaining the “why”

heyaco 11mo ago

us spy plant

1812725 11mo ago

[flagged]

1812725 11mo ago

[flagged]