Show HN: Bolnee-Chat – Self Hosted Chatbot Integration in Your Business Website

Bolnee-Chat, a self-hosted RAG chatbot platform, is now available for free on GitHub, enabling businesses to integrate AI chatbots into their websites with no vendor lock-in or per-message billing. The platform supports OpenAI-compatible providers like OpenRouter, OpenAI, Groq, Ollama, and vLLM, and includes features such as website crawling, PDF ingestion, encrypted provider keys, and a dark-mode console. It runs on Node.js 18+ and Python 3.10+, with SQLite storage, and can be deployed on a server, Vercel, or Cloudflare Pages.

Chatbot integration in your business website. Self hosted, free forever Bolnee-Chat is a self-hosted RAG chatbot platform. Create a bot, add your website + PDFs as knowledge, pick any OpenAI-compatible provider OpenRouter, OpenAI, Groq, Ollama, vLLM , and embed a 2-line snippet. Answers are grounded in your sources with citations, visitor chats are grouped and exportable, and everything runs on your infrastructure with SQLite. | No vendor lock-in, no per-message billing. Run on your server, Vercel or Cloudflare Pages — SQLite, no external DB. | Crawls your site + ingests PDFs/TXT/MD/DOCX, chunks to SQLite FTS and builds grounded prompts. Sources are cited, fallback is configurable. | Copy | Also in the box: Knowledge management — lists locator · type · status · error · date with delete; append more via Add knowledge . Avatar file storage — data URLs converted to /api/public/avatar/:id 2MB limit, data/avatars/ . Encrypted provider keys — per-bot apiKey/baseUrl/model via AES-256-GCM, never exposed in snippet. Dark-mode console — 020617 bg, 1e293b cards, slate-800 inputs, no white surfaces. | Requirement | Details | |---|---| OS | macOS, Linux, Windows WSL | Runtime | Node.js 18+ | Package Manager | npm | Python | 3.10+ crawler, optional but recommended | Python Deps | aiohttp , beautifulsoup4 , lxml , requests , brotli + playwright for JS-heavy sites | Clone git clone https://github.com/AniketWathore/bolnee-chat.git cd bolnee-chat Env cp .env.example .env edit .env — simplest self-hosted: DISABLE AUTH=true JWT SECRET=change-me-32-chars LLM BASE URL=https://openrouter.ai/api/v1 optional global fallback LLM API KEY=sk-or-v1-... optional global fallback LLM MODEL=inclusionai/ling-3.0-flash-fin:free Install npm install Python crawler deps optional pip install aiohttp beautifulsoup4 lxml requests brotli Verify npm run lint tsc --noEmit npm run build vite + esbuild → dist/ npm run dev http://localhost:3000 auto-fallback to 3001 if busy SQLite is created at data/bolnee.db git-ignored . Crawled sites → data/{chatbotId} website.json , chunks in SQLite. Create chatbot — + New chatbot → name + avatar preview ≤2MB . Add knowledge — enter https://your-site.com and/or upload PDF/TXT/MD/DOCX/FAQ → status queued → indexed . Configure provider — choose provider → Fetch models → pick model → Save. Keys encrypted, not in embed. Embed — copy snippet from Overview : <script window.BotConfig = { botName: "Customer Bot", avatar: "https://your-domain/api/public/avatar/BOT ID", chatUrl: "https://your-domain/api/public/chat/BOT ID", accentColor: " 111111", greeting: "Hi How can I help?", theme: "dark" }; </script <script src="https://your-domain/chatbot-widget.js" async </script Paste before </body . Widget stores VISITOR ID + chat history in localStorage ; greeting shows once. | Tab | What it does | |---|---| Overview | Live status, messages/users/sources, embed copy src/components/ChatbotDashboard.tsx:244 | Appearance | name/avatar/accent/theme/greeting + live preview src/components/ChatbotDashboard.tsx:282 | Chats | Grouped by visitor → date, CSV/JSON/PDF , Refresh src/components/ChatbotDashboard.tsx:371 | Knowledge | Sources + Add knowledge wizard src/components/ChatbotDashboard.tsx:449 | Settings | provider/model/baseUrl/apiKey , defaultMessage/fallbackMessage , Danger zone delete src/components/ChatbotDashboard.tsx:493 | | Method | Path | Description | |---|---|---| POST | /api/chatbots | Create bot | GET | /api/chatbots | List bots | PATCH | /api/chatbots/:id | Appearance + provider name/avatar/accent/theme/greeting + provider/model/apiKey/baseUrl | GET | /api/chatbots/:id/appearance | Get appearance server.ts:728 | GET | /api/chatbots/:id/messages?limit=200 | Grouped messages | GET | /api/chatbots/:id/stats | total/users | GET | /api/chatbots/:id/messages/export?format=csv|json | Export | GET | /api/knowledge/sources?chatbotId=ID | List sources | POST | /api/knowledge/sources/:chatbotId | Add URL {url} or file multipart → queued | DELETE | /api/knowledge/sources/:sourceId?chatbotId=ID | Delete source + chunks | POST | /api/public/chat/:chatbotId | SSE chat {message, visitorId} → data: {token|error|sources} + data: DONE | GET | /api/public/knowledge/:chatbotId | Public knowledge cached | GET | /api/public/avatar/:chatbotId | Avatar file or redirect | POST | /api/providers/models | List models for provider/baseUrl/apiKey | GET | /api/stats | Global totalMessages/activeSessions | Streaming: public/chatbot-widget.js:311 reads SSE via getReader , falls back to text + SW bypass for locked streams. Visitor grouping via X-Visitor-Id VISITOR ID in localStorage . | Path | Role | |---|---| server.ts | Express + Vite dev, auth DISABLE AUTH , ingestion, RAG, SSE chat server.ts:282 | server/db.ts | SQLite better-sqlite3 — chatbots/sources/chunks/messages , getChatbotAppearance | server/ingestion.ts + crawler/run crawler for bolnee.py | Crawl → /data/{id} website.json → chunks | crawler/crawler.py | Same-origin crawl, robots.txt , h1/h2/p/li extraction, sitemap + homepage | public/chatbot-widget.js | Embeddable widget — BotConfig.chatUrl , accent, greeting, theme, VISITOR ID , history | src/components/ChatbotDashboard.tsx | Tabs: overview/appearance/chats/knowledge/settings, embedCode with theme | src/components/KnowledgeSection.tsx | 4-step wizard: Knowledge → Provider → Processing polls status → Embed | src/components/Overview.tsx | Stats + grid of 4 bots + View all | src/components/BotCreationWizard.tsx | Name + avatar upload 2MB limit | src/index.css | Dark-mode tokens --color-bg 020617 , --color-card 1e293b | vercel.json / wrangler.toml | Hosting rewrites, bucket = "./dist" , DISABLE AUTH | Dashboard is fully API-driven /api/ relative and auto-configures window.location.origin for embed URLs. Vercel: env DISABLE AUTH=true JWT SECRET not required for simple mode vercel.json already: rewrites /api/:path → /api, / . → /index.html, outputDirectory: dist npm run build && vercel --prod Cloudflare Pages / Workers: wrangler.toml: bucket = "./dist", DISABLE AUTH=true npm run build wrangler pages deploy dist or: npx wrangler deploy Chat endpoint streams SSE; for external sites use public https:// chatUrl not localhost . | Env | Description | Default | |---|---|---| DISABLE AUTH / VITE DISABLE AUTH | No-login console single-tenant | false | JWT SECRET | Auth signing key 16+ chars, prod required | development-secret-change-me | LLM BASE URL / OPENROUTER API KEY / NVIDIA API KEY | Global provider fallback per-bot settings take precedence | — | LLM API KEY | Global API key fallback | — | LLM MODEL | Global model fallback e.g. openai/gpt-4o-mini | gpt-4o-mini | PORT | Server port auto-fallback +1 if busy | 3000 | .env.example documents all. | Symptom | Fix | |---|---| Port 3000 in use → 3001 and embed fails on external site | Embed uses window.location.origin ; regenerate after restart or deploy to public URL localhost embed is https:// mixed-content | getReader locked / ReadableStream locked | Bump public/sw.js to v3 skips POST /api/public/chat ; hard-refresh to update SW | Model 404 / 402 | Use Fetch models → pick :free e.g. inclusionai/ling-3.0-flash-fin:free or add credits | 404 knowledge/avatar | Ensure data/bolnee.db exists and bot id matches data/{id} website.json | | Avatar too large | PNG/JPG/WEBP ≤2MB; data URLs auto-converted to /api/public/avatar/:id | | Greeting repeats on open/close | Fixed in public/chatbot-widget.js:115 — saveHistory/loadHistory in localStorage + engine=true guard; clear bolnee msgs to reset | npm run lint tsc --noEmit clean npm run build vite + esbuild → dist/ npm run dev http://localhost:3000 Manual: 1. Create bot → avatar preview → Save appearance → preview updates 2. Add knowledge: URL + PDF → status queued → indexed 3. Provider → Fetch models → pick :free → Save 4. Overview → Copy embed → paste in plain HTML → widget loads, greeting once, close/open keeps history, dark/light/auto themes correct 5. Chats → grouped by visitor → CSV/JSON/PDF export 6. Settings → default/fallback messages → Chat without sources returns fallback Distributed under the MIT License /AniketWathore/bolnee-chat/blob/main/LICENSE . See LICENSE /AniketWathore/bolnee-chat/blob/main/LICENSE for more information.