explaingit

chatgptnextweb/nextchat

🔥 Hot★ 88,039TypeScriptAudience · vibe coderComplexity · 2/5ActiveLicenseSetup · easy

TLDR

A lightweight, cross-platform chat app that connects to multiple AI providers (Claude, GPT-4, Gemini, DeepSeek) with a single fast interface. Deploy on web, desktop, or phone; bring your own API key.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((NextChat))
    What it does
      Chat with AI models
      Multi-provider support
      Cross-platform client
    Deployment options
      Web via Vercel
      Desktop app
      iOS app
      Self-hosted
    Key features
      Local chat history
      Markdown rendering
      Prompt templates
      Web search plugin
    Tech stack
      TypeScript
      React
      Vercel hosting
    Use cases
      Replace vendor websites
      Unified AI interface
      Private conversations

Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Deploy a personal AI chat interface across web, desktop, and mobile without relying on vendor websites.

USE CASE 2

Create a branded, private AI chat app for your team or company with custom knowledge bases and user permissions.

USE CASE 3

Build a unified chat client that switches between Claude, GPT-4, Gemini, and other models using your own API keys.

USE CASE 4

Run a self-hosted AI chat app using local models like RWKV or LocalAI for complete privacy and control.

Tech stack

TypeScriptReactNext.jsVercelElectronNode.js

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Requires API key from at least one AI provider (Claude, GPT-4, Gemini, or DeepSeek)

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice and license text.

In plain English

NextChat is a lightweight, cross-platform AI assistant app, a polished chat client you can run on the web, desktop, or phone that talks to large language models from several providers. Instead of using the official websites or apps from each AI vendor, you bring your own API key from a provider and NextChat gives you a single, fast interface for chatting with them. The README mentions support for Claude, DeepSeek, GPT-4, and Gemini Pro. The way it works is that you deploy NextChat in one of several ways, a one-click deploy on Vercel, a desktop app for Linux, Windows, and MacOS (the desktop client is around 5MB), an iOS app on the App Store, or running it locally yourself, then you provide an API key for whichever AI service you want to use. The app sends your messages to that service and renders the response with Markdown, code highlighting, LaTeX math, and Mermaid diagrams. Privacy is a stated focus: chat history is stored locally in your browser. Long conversations get automatically compressed to save tokens. You would use NextChat if you already have API access to one or more language model providers and want a clean, fast interface across devices instead of running each vendor's site. It has features for creating reusable prompt templates, sharing conversations as images, plugins for tools like web search and calculators, an Artifacts preview window for generated content, realtime chat, and self-hosted model support via RWKV-Runner or LocalAI. There is also an enterprise edition for companies wanting branded, privately-deployed installs with permission control and knowledge-base integration. The app supports many languages and is built in TypeScript.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
How do I deploy NextChat on Vercel and connect it to my OpenAI API key?
Prompt 2
Show me how to set up NextChat as a desktop app on Windows and configure it to use Claude.
Prompt 3
How do I create and save prompt templates in NextChat for reuse across conversations?
Prompt 4
What's the process to self-host NextChat with a local language model using LocalAI?
Prompt 5
How can I enable web search and calculator plugins in NextChat for my AI conversations?
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Generated 2026-05-18 · Model: sonnet-4-6 · Verify against the repo before relying on details.