kotaemon

What is kotaemon?

kotaemon is a Gradio-based web UI for question answering over your own documents. It supports hybrid (full-text plus vector) retrieval with re-ranking, multi-modal parsing of figures and tables, citations with in-browser PDF previews, and GraphRAG-style indexing (NanoGraphRAG, LightRAG, MS GraphRAG). It works with API providers such as OpenAI, Azure, Cohere and Groq or with local models through Ollama and llama-cpp-python, and has multi-user login with private and public collections.

Where it fits in a 10–200 person business

• Q&A over internal manuals, contracts or reports with page-level citations
• Private document chat on local models using the image with bundled Ollama
• Team knowledge base with shared and private document collections

These use cases are our editorial suggestions, not claims made by the project.

Can a business use kotaemon? (license)

This is a plain-English summary of the license text, not legal advice. Third-party models you run with it have their own licenses.

Data & compliance: does kotaemon phone home?

Checked against the project's own docs and repository on Oct 23, 2026. "Not documented" means we could not find the answer in official sources; it does not mean the feature is missing or that no data is sent. Third-party services you connect (model APIs, vector databases, search engines) have their own data policies. Compare all apps.

What hardware does kotaemon need?

The project does not publish a minimum CPU/RAM figure, so we leave the official value blank rather than guess.

No official hardware requirements published. The README lists Python 3.10+ (or Docker) and, for extra file types, Unstructured. With local models, needs depend on the Ollama or llama.cpp model you choose.

Source: github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon#readme

How much does it cost to host kotaemon per month?

How to deploy kotaemon

Method: Docker

docker run \
  -e GRADIO_SERVER_NAME=0.0.0.0 -e GRADIO_SERVER_PORT=7860 \
  -v ./ktem_app_data:/app/ktem_app_data \
  -p 7860:7860 -it --rm \
  ghcr.io/cinnamon/kotaemon:main-lite
# open http://localhost:7860 (main-full adds Unstructured, main-ollama bundles Ollama)

From the official instructions: github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon#readme. Always check the source for the current version before you run it.

Known gotchas when self-hosting kotaemon

• The default username and password are both admin. Change them before exposing the app; the initial admin account comes from KH_FEATURE_USER_MANAGEMENT_ADMIN and KH_FEATURE_USER_MANAGEMENT_PASSWORD. source
• The .env file is only read once to populate the database on the first run. Later model or API-key changes must be made in the Resources tab of the UI. source
• The lite image only handles .pdf, .html, .mhtml and .xlsx well; .doc, .docx and other types need the larger main-full image (Unstructured). source
• Official MS GraphRAG indexing only works with the OpenAI or Ollama API; the maintainers recommend NanoGraphRAG for most users. source

Alternatives in Knowledge base & RAG

• RAGFlow RAG engine with deep document parsing (OCR, layout and tables) and cited answers. Compare kotaemon vs RAGFlow
• AnythingLLM All-in-one private chat with your documents, agents and an embeddable widget. Compare AnythingLLM vs kotaemon
• PrivateGPT API-first private document Q&A that sits on top of your own LLM server. Compare kotaemon vs PrivateGPT
• Open Notebook Private, self-hosted alternative to Google NotebookLM with your choice of AI models. Compare kotaemon vs Open Notebook
• Onyx (formerly Danswer) AI chat and enterprise search connected to 50+ workplace apps. Compare kotaemon vs Onyx (formerly Danswer)
• FastGPT Knowledge-base Q&A and visual AI workflow platform. Compare FastGPT vs kotaemon
• MaxKB Enterprise knowledge-base and agent platform with RAG and workflows. Compare kotaemon vs MaxKB

Sources

• GitHub repository: github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon
• Official documentation: cinnamon.github.io/kotaemon/
• License text: github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/blob/main/LICENSE.txt
• Hardware requirements, Deploy instructions, Gotcha 2, Gotcha 3, Gotcha 4: github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon#readme
• Gotcha 1: github.com/Cinnamon/kotaemon/blob/main/flowsettings.py
• Hetzner Cloud pricing (cost estimate): www.hetzner.com/cloud/regular-performance
• GitHub stars, commits and releases: GitHub REST API, fetched Oct 23, 2026