{"slug": "onyx", "name": "Onyx", "category": "communication", "category_name": "Email and chat", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 11, "warners": 1, "score": 3.89, "rising": -1.31, "first": "2025-11-25", "latest": "2026-07-03", "why": "I have been using onyx for years and quite happy with it.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 4, "compare": 2, "warn": 1}, "spark": [2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I have been using onyx for years and quite happy with it.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "onyx.app", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://onyx.app/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Onyx"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 762090384, "item_id": 47630649, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47630649", "by": "ghywertelling", "date": "2026-04-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This could be useful.", "excerpt": "https://onyx.app/ This could be useful.", "context": "", "use_case": "Searching personal documents and email", "switched_from": "", "story": "We replaced RAG with a virtual filesystem for our AI documentation assistant"}, {"id": 747387664, "item_id": 46711729, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46711729", "by": "markx2", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it does the job", "excerpt": "I have Onyx installed and have used it for years. I don't use it regularly but it does the job. Why would I switch to Clutterfall? https://titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "A macOS cache cleaner for browser and dev and AI caches (Clean / DeepClean)"}, {"id": 737060256, "item_id": 46066266, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46066266", "by": "mediumsmart", "date": "2025-11-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have been using onyx for years and quite happy with it.", "excerpt": "I have been using onyx for years and quite happy with it. https://titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) \u2013 Open-source chat UI"}, {"id": 736843920, "item_id": 46052745, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46052745", "by": "throw4039", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Looks awesome!", "excerpt": "Looks awesome! I'm really trying to switch off Open WebUI due to its general slowness and bugginess, as well as documentation which is almost entirely slop. However it doesn't seem to have MinerU as a supported backend, which is hands-down the best PDF extraction tool I've ever used (and is self-hostable on a machine with a modest GPU). Could it be added? https://github.com/opendatalab/MinerU", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) \u2013 Open-source chat UI"}, {"id": 736762368, "item_id": 46047648, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46047648", "by": "Weves", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You don't need any subscription to run the code!", "excerpt": "You don't need any subscription to run the code! By default, none of the enterprise code runs (and it can all be completely removed and the app will work as expected). Fully FOSS version here: https://github.com/onyx-dot-app/onyx-foss.", "context": "", "use_case": "Open-source chat interface", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) \u2013 Open-source chat UI"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 736933216, "item_id": 46058326, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46058326", "by": "solarkraft", "date": "2025-11-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I won't be able to run Onyx on my low powered home server anyway", "excerpt": "> Do you think that's in-line with what you're thinking of It definitely sounds good. Of course it's hard to anticipate what interfaces new features will require, it probably won't always be possible to integrate new features with a generic plugin (voice mode is most likely such a feature), but if the code is well architected, this should be okay. > Interesting. Why do you think that is? Writing has a lot of friction", "context": "Runs a low-powered home server", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) \u2013 Open-source chat UI"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["search and deep research", "macos maintenance", "searching personal documents and email", "chat ui", "open-source chat interface"], "compared": [{"slug": "open-webui", "name": "Open WebUI", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 787418144, "item_id": 49213634, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49213634", "by": "tedlutkus", "date": "2026-08-07", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "We let 120 Onyx agents discover a physics model", "excerpt": "We let 120 Onyx agents discover a physics model for a robotic actuator, and in 1.5 hours they completed research that would have taken weeks. Autoresearch for hardware is here, and we\u2019re making our agents open-source! Video: https://lnkd.in/p/gsgSPSwG", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Autoresearch for Hardware"}, {"id": 749251632, "item_id": 46828227, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46828227", "by": "ravenbitcoin", "date": "2026-01-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've been building Onyx, a local-first AI productivity suite for note-taking", "excerpt": "I've been building Onyx, a local-first AI productivity suite for note-taking and knowledge management. Architecture: Local-first: your notes are markdown files on your machine, not in someone else's database End-to-end encrypted sync via Nostr protocol AI writing assistance with configurable providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, local models\u2014bring your own keys) No accounts, no vendor lock-in, works fully offline Productivit", "context": "", "use_case": "Local-first AI note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "I built a Local-first AI productivity suite with OpenCode and encrypted sync"}, {"id": 737040496, "item_id": 46065031, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46065031", "by": "Weves", "date": "2025-11-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Have you checked out https://docs.onyx.app/deployment/getting_started/quickstart#installation-script?", "excerpt": "Have you checked out https://docs.onyx.app/deployment/getting_started/quickstart#installation-script? We should definitely update the Local guide to reflect the ^, thanks for pointing that out. For the container footprint - pretty much all of them are necessary to run locally. We hope that just a large # of containers shouldn't be a problem, as long as they are all lightweight (e.g. total resource utilization is low)", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) \u2013 Open-source chat UI"}, {"id": 736823344, "item_id": 46051459, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46051459", "by": "Weves", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For an AI-powered research assistant, Onyx might just work out of the box.", "excerpt": "> ease of installation, streaming support, model agnosticity, chat persistence and blob support we have all of those! > how onyx is comparable For an AI-powered research assistant, Onyx might just work out of the box. We have ~45 connectors to common apps (https://github.com/onyx-dot-app/onyx/blob/main/backend/onyx/connectors/README.md), integrations with the most popular web search providers (https://github.com/onyx", "context": "", "use_case": "AI chat and research assistant", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) \u2013 Open-source chat UI"}, {"id": 736749024, "item_id": 46046814, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46046814", "by": "Weves", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The admin side of the house has been missing a bit of love, and we have a large overhaul coming soon", "excerpt": "Really appreciate the feedback (and glad to hear the core concept resonated with you). The admin side of the house has been missing a bit of love, and we have a large overhaul coming soon that I'm hoping addresses some (most?) of your concerns. For now, if you'd like to view documents that have been processed, you can check out the `Explorer` panel on the left. In general, I'd love to hear more about what gives it th", "context": "", "use_case": "open-source chat UI with RAG", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) \u2013 Open-source chat UI"}, {"id": 736743264, "item_id": 46046454, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46046454", "by": "Weves", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Most deployments of Onyx are using the pure FOSS version of Onyx.", "excerpt": "Yes, it absolutely does! The chat UX, add-ons (deep research, code interpreter, RAG, etc.), and SSO are MIT licensed. Most deployments of Onyx are using the pure FOSS version of Onyx. Many individuals / teams have done extensive white labeling (something that OpenWebUI doesn't allow). We have https://github.com/onyx-dot-app/onyx-foss, for a fully MIT licensed version of the repo if you want to be safe about the licen", "context": "", "use_case": "Open-source chat UI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) \u2013 Open-source chat UI"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46045987", "title": "Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) \u2013 Open-source chat UI", "mentions": 11}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49213633", "title": "Autoresearch for Hardware", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48779454", "title": "SearXNG: A free internet metasearch engine", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48733043", "title": "Have You Restarted Your Computer This Week?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47618223", "title": "We replaced RAG with a virtual filesystem for our AI documentation assistant", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47215427", "title": "Show HN: Omni \u2013 Open-source workplace search and chat, built on Postgres", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"neutral": 2, "compare": 1, "recommend": 2, "warn": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"compare": 1}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 780511745, "item_id": 48781984, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48781984", "by": "c-hendricks", "date": "2026-07-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use Searxng through Onyx", "excerpt": "I use Searxng through Onyx, both as regular search and Onyx's Deep Research mode. I also have https://github.com/ihor-sokoliuk/mcp-searxng to add search to coding agents. Haven't really had many issues with it.", "context": "", "use_case": "search and deep research", "switched_from": "", "story": "SearXNG: A free internet metasearch engine"}, {"id": 779739008, "item_id": 48733688, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48733688", "by": "petecooper", "date": "2026-06-30", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "My Saturday mornings are more often markers for running Onyx[1] for maintenance.", "excerpt": "I have a terrible work / non-work balance, and one trivial habit I've established is turning off my (Mac mini & MacBook Air) computers & screens when my work time is done. I don't want it to be trivially easy for me to just do one more thing\u2026there be dragons. My Saturday mornings are more often markers for running Onyx[1] for maintenance. [1] https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html", "context": "", "use_case": "macOS maintenance", "switched_from": "", "story": "Have You Restarted Your Computer This Week?"}, {"id": 762090384, "item_id": 47630649, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47630649", "by": "ghywertelling", "date": "2026-04-03", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This could be useful.", "excerpt": "https://onyx.app/ This could be useful.", "context": "", "use_case": "Searching personal documents and email", "switched_from": "", "story": "We replaced RAG with a virtual filesystem for our AI documentation assistant"}, {"id": 755478945, "item_id": 47217434, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47217434", "by": "PhilippGille", "date": "2026-03-02", "stance": "compare", "quote": "How does it compare to Onyx", "excerpt": "How does it compare to Onyx (rebranded from Danswer, with more chat focus, while Danswer was more RAG focus on company docs/comms)? - https://onyx.app/ - Their rebranded Onyx launch: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46045987 - Their orignal Danswer launch: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36667374", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Omni \u2013 Open-source workplace search and chat, built on Postgres"}, {"id": 747387664, "item_id": 46711729, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46711729", "by": "markx2", "date": "2026-01-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it does the job", "excerpt": "I have Onyx installed and have used it for years. I don't use it regularly but it does the job. Why would I switch to Clutterfall? https://titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "A macOS cache cleaner for browser and dev and AI caches (Clean / DeepClean)"}, {"id": 737060256, "item_id": 46066266, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46066266", "by": "mediumsmart", "date": "2025-11-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have been using onyx for years and quite happy with it.", "excerpt": "I have been using onyx for years and quite happy with it. https://titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) \u2013 Open-source chat UI"}, {"id": 736933216, "item_id": 46058326, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46058326", "by": "solarkraft", "date": "2025-11-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I won't be able to run Onyx on my low powered home server anyway", "excerpt": "> Do you think that's in-line with what you're thinking of It definitely sounds good. Of course it's hard to anticipate what interfaces new features will require, it probably won't always be possible to integrate new features with a generic plugin (voice mode is most likely such a feature), but if the code is well architected, this should be okay. > Interesting. Why do you think that is? Writing has a lot of friction", "context": "Runs a low-powered home server", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) \u2013 Open-source chat UI"}, {"id": 736843920, "item_id": 46052745, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46052745", "by": "throw4039", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Looks awesome!", "excerpt": "Looks awesome! I'm really trying to switch off Open WebUI due to its general slowness and bugginess, as well as documentation which is almost entirely slop. However it doesn't seem to have MinerU as a supported backend, which is hands-down the best PDF extraction tool I've ever used (and is self-hostable on a machine with a modest GPU). Could it be added? https://github.com/opendatalab/MinerU", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) \u2013 Open-source chat UI"}, {"id": 736769970, "item_id": 46048123, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46048123", "by": "crocowhile", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "but I'll give this a try", "excerpt": "In a landscape where every week we have a different leading model, these systems are really useful for the power users because they keep the interface and models constant and allow to switch easily using API via openrouter or naga. I have been using openwebui which is under active development but I'll give this a try.", "context": "", "use_case": "chat UI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) \u2013 Open-source chat UI"}, {"id": 736762368, "item_id": 46047648, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46047648", "by": "Weves", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You don't need any subscription to run the code!", "excerpt": "You don't need any subscription to run the code! By default, none of the enterprise code runs (and it can all be completely removed and the app will work as expected). Fully FOSS version here: https://github.com/onyx-dot-app/onyx-foss.", "context": "", "use_case": "Open-source chat interface", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) \u2013 Open-source chat UI"}, {"id": 736755744, "item_id": 46047234, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46047234", "by": "hobofan", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "compare", "quote": "We are building a competing open source tool", "excerpt": "Congrats on the launch! We are building a competing open source tool[0] with a very similar focus (strongly relying on interoperable standards like MCP; built for enterprise needs, etc.), though bootstrapping with customers rather than being VC funded. It's nice to see a competitor in the field following similar \"OSS Friends\" principles, while many of the other ones seem to have strong proprietary tendencies. (Small ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) \u2013 Open-source chat UI"}, {"id": 736741856, "item_id": 46046366, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46046366", "by": "nawtagain", "date": "2025-11-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Congrats on the launch!", "excerpt": "Congrats on the launch! Can you clarify the license and if this actually meets the definition of Open Source as outlined by the OSI [1] or if this is actually just source available similar to OpenWebUI? Specifically can / does this run without the /onyx/backend/ee and web/src/app/ee directories which are licensed under a proprietary license? 1 - https://opensource.org/licenses", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) \u2013 Open-source chat UI"}]}