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Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) – Open-source chat UI

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21–30 of 163 posts

Re: Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) – Open-source chat UI

#21
> We’re building an open-source chat that works

As long as you have Pricing on your website your product is not open source in the true spirit of open sourceness. It is open code for sure but it is a business and so incentive is to run it like a business which will conflate with how the project is used by the community.

Btw, there is nothing wrong with that but let's be honest here if you get this funded (perhaps it already is) who are you going to align your mission with - the open source community or shareholders? I don't think you can do both. Especially if a strong competitor comes along that simply deploys the same version of the product. We have seen this story many times before.

Now, this is completely different from let's say Onyx being an enterprise search product where you create a community-driven version. You might say that fundamentally it is the same code but the way it is presented is different. Nobody will think this is open-source but more of "the source is available" if you want to check.

I thought perhaps it will benefit to share this prospective here if it helps at all.

Btw, I hear good things about Onyx and I have heard that some enterprises are already using it - the open-source version.

Re: Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) – Open-source chat UI

#24
post #21

> We’re building an open-source chat that works As long as you have Pricing on your website your product is not open source in the true spirit of open sourceness. It is open code for sure but it is a business and so incentive is to run it like a business which will conflate with how the project is used by the community. Btw, there is nothing wrong with that but let's be honest here if you get this funded (perhaps it…

Actually - if you have bunch of VCs on your back, you can't even align with your very own user base let alone any other wider community.

Re: Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) – Open-source chat UI

#26
post #19

how is this different from Librechat?

Some of the key differences:

1/ large connector suite + good RAG. Answers at scale is hard, and from our enterprise search roots, we've spent a lot of time with it. It's something that many teams expect from their chat UI.

2/ deep research + open-source code interpreter.

3/ simpler UX. LibreChat has a lot of customizability exposed front and center to the user, which is great for the power user but can be overwhelming for someone new to using AI systems.

Re: Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) – Open-source chat UI

#28
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why?

there's a million other project just like this one, many that are much more advanced and mature, including from Vercel. There's no moat.

Agree that's a lot of other projects out there, but why do you say the Vercel option is more advanced/mature?

The common trend we've seen is that most of these other projects are okay for a true "just send messages to an AI and get responses" use case, but for most things beyond that they fall short / there a lot of paper cuts.

For an individual, this might show up when they try more complex tasks that require multiple tool calls in sequence or when they have a research task to accomplish. For an org, this might show up when trying to manage access to assistants / tools / connected sources.

Our goal is to make sure Onyx is the most advanced and mature option out there. I think we've accomplished that, so if there's anything missing I'd love to hear about it.

Re: Launch HN: Onyx (YC W24) – Open-source chat UI

#29
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 heads up: The "view all integrations" button goes to a 404)

[0] https://erato.chat/

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