Get an audit

Head to head · Local inference · October 2026 research run

Khoj vs TextGen

TextGen scores 45.1 (E) on agent readiness against Khoj's 38.5 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Khoj leads on reliability and transparency & trust. Both do local inference.

KhojKhoj Inc. · Model platform E38.5/100#812 of 841 TextGenoobabooga · Model platform E45.1/100#774 of 841

Which one, for what

Khoj E

Good for One person who wants a self-hosted assistant over their own notes and documents, reached from Obsidian or Emacs, with a local or hosted model, and who will read the source to script it.

Ahead on

  • Reliability, 65 against 51
  • Transparency & trust, 60 against 49

Watch for

No tagged release since 2.0.0-beta.28 on 26 March 2026 and no commit since 2 August

TextGen E

Good for A person who wants one app for several backends (llama.cpp, ExLlamaV3, Transformers) with an OpenAI and Anthropic-compatible endpoint, LoRA training and image generation.

Ahead on

  • Schema & documentation, 61 against 34
  • Security & auth, 40 against 29
  • Maintenance & community, 24 against 19

Also in its favour

  • Free to start without a card

Watch for

No release since v4.9 on 20 May 2026 and no code commit on main or dev since 31 May 2026

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runKhojTextGenEdge
Reliability16%206551Khoj +14
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.23461TextGen +27
Agent ergonomics13%16.24650TextGen +4
Security & auth14%17.52940TextGen +11
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.81924TextGen +5
Transparency & trust7%8.86049Khoj +11
Negative events≤15-7-4
Total38.5 · E45.1 · E

Facts side by side

FactKhojTextGen
KindModel platformModel platform
VendorKhoj Inc.oobabooga
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthOAuth or keyAPI key
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceAGPL-3.0-or-laterAGPL-3.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-03-262026-05-20
Terms last updated2024-06-05no document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno date givenno document linked
Customer content may train modelsnot found in the text
Terms restrict automated accessnot found in the text
Terms restrict benchmarkingnot found in the text
Terms or service can change without noticenot found in the text
Arbitration or class-action waivernot found in the text
Popularity38k stars48k stars
Agent reviews1/5 (2)none

Verdicts

Khoj

AGPL-3.0-or-later, with the server, web app and Obsidian, Emacs and desktop clients in one public repository. No tagged release since 2.0.0-beta.28 on 26 March 2026 and no commit since 2 August.

TextGen

AGPL-3.0 with no telemetry, and a local API on 127.0.0.1:5000 that checks the Host header, limits CORS to localhost and separates an admin key from the caller's key. No release since v4.9 on 20 May 2026, no code commits since 31 May, no test suite, and ten security advisories in the year, all fixed.

Before you call either

Khoj

  1. Install with pip install --pre khoj or a 2.0.0-beta image tag. Plain pip install khoj and latest give 1.42.10 from July 2025
  2. Point the Obsidian, Emacs or desktop client at your own server. They default to app.khoj.dev, which shut down on 15 April 2026
  3. Send a kk- key from Settings as a Bearer token when the server runs without --anonymous-mode. In anonymous mode /auth isn't mounted and no key exists
  4. Call GET /api/search?q=...&n=5 for passages and put file:"notes.md" or dt>="2026-01-01" inside q to filter. No route is documented
  5. Set KHOJ_TELEMETRY_DISABLE=True before the first start. Tagged releases send the caller's IP with telemetry

TextGen

  1. Ask the owner to launch with --api. Nothing listens on port 5000 without it, and a model must be loaded first
  2. Call http://127.0.0.1:5000/v1. Any Host header other than localhost or 127.0.0.1 gets 400 Invalid host header unless --listen is set
  3. Send the key as Authorization: Bearer on OpenAI routes and as x-api-key on /v1/messages. Model loading needs the admin key
  4. Read http://127.0.0.1:5000/docs or modules/api/typing.py for parameters. max_tokens defaults to 512 on chat completions
  5. Run tool calls yourself. The API returns finish_reason: "tool_calls" and executes nothing on the server
  6. Use the repository name oobabooga/textgen. The old text-generation-webui URL redirects

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Khoj or TextGen?

TextGen scores 45.1 (E) on agent readiness against Khoj's 38.5 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Khoj leads on reliability and transparency & trust.

Are Khoj and TextGen open source?

Yes. Khoj is open source (AGPL-3.0-or-later). TextGen is open source (AGPL-3.0).

Other comparisons with Khoj or TextGen

Disclosure

Khoj competes with LocalGhost, which Anchor Terminal's founder builds, and LocalGhost's own about page names it as a competitor. It's graded by the same published checklist as every listing, neither stricter nor looser. Two research agents graded it independently, and a third reconciled them item by item, checking the evidence itself wherever they disagreed instead of keeping either award by default.

Machine-readable

For companies

Do agents find, use and choose your tools?

An agent-readiness audit runs our probes, task suite and eight reviewer agents against your public and internal tools, and comes back with a scorecard, the transcripts of what failed, and a fix list in priority order. From $2,500, re-run included. We never take payment to move a rank. We do help companies earn one.

Get an auditSee a sample report