Is CompanyGPT just LibreChat with a different logo?

No. CompanyGPT builds on LibreChat as its foundation — we maintain our own fork and apply upstream updates continuously via Git patch. In parallel, we develop the components that go beyond LibreChat's standard scope: companyDASHBOARD with breakdowns per user, team and model, companyRAG with SharePoint permission mirroring, and the native Office add-in from companyM365.

Do I also get new LibreChat features in CompanyGPT?

Yes. We follow upstream development and take the changes into our fork via Git patch. New LibreChat features therefore reach you as well — tested before they land on your system.

Can't I simply run LibreChat myself?

You can, and for technically well-equipped teams that is often the right decision. The effort lies less in the initial installation than in ongoing operations: security updates, model connections, backup, monitoring, permission management, and the question of who takes over when the responsible person leaves the company.

Do I have access to the configuration with CompanyGPT?

Yes, you have full access to the entire configuration, and the system runs in your own cloud tenant. You can also manage it yourself with your own IT team at any time.

CompanyGPT vs. LibreChat: Fork, Updates & Add-ons

This page opens with a disclosure that rarely appears on comparison pages: CompanyGPT is a fork of LibreChat maintained by innFactory.

Anyone who knows that rightly asks: why should I pay for something that is available for free? The answer is not a marketing answer, it is a calculation of effort.

What LibreChat is — and why we build on it

LibreChat is an open-source chat interface for language models. It can connect several providers in parallel, supports agents and the Model Context Protocol, and is actively developed. For us it was the best available foundation: we did not have to build an interface from scratch and could instead invest the work where the gap for enterprises actually is.

The decisive factor was the MIT licence, unchanged in substance since 2023. It expressly permits modifying, distributing and commercialising the software — the only obligation is to ship the copyright and licence notice, which we do. Other projects in this field have since added branding clauses to their licences; we cover that in our comparison with Open WebUI.

One more thing for context: LibreChat has belonged to ClickHouse since November 2025, with the founding team moving across. The licence has remained unchanged in substance since then.

That decision is also the reason why CompanyGPT has no per-user licences. A large part of the foundation is open source; you pay for cloud infrastructure, AI tokens and the maintenance contract — not per employee.

How our fork works

A fork that is branched off once and then left alone is a risk: it falls behind upstream development and accumulates security vulnerabilities. That is exactly why we work differently:

We follow LibreChat development continuously and apply the changes to our fork via Git patch. New features and security updates from the upstream project therefore also reach your installation — tested before they land on your system.

In parallel, we develop the components enterprises need and that an open-source chat interface naturally does not bring along. These add-ons are the part that is not open source, and that is exactly what the maintenance contract is for.

What we develop alongside it

Add-on	What it solves
companyDASHBOARD	Usage and cost transparency per user, team and model — the basis for budget control and internal cost allocation
companyRAG	Semantic search across your documents, including SharePoint permission mirroring: whoever is not allowed to see a file in SharePoint does not get it out of the AI answer either
companyM365	MCP server for Microsoft 365 with a native Office add-in: CompanyGPT as a task pane directly in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook — via Office.js, without a Copilot licence per user
companyFILES	Creation of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files out of AI conversations
companyTRANSLATE	Translation service in your own tenant — designed for GDPR-compliant use
companyTRANSCRIBE	Transcription and meeting minutes

Permission mirroring in companyRAG is the point where do-it-yourself projects fail most often. A knowledge base is quickly set up — a knowledge base that respects existing access rights is a considerably larger piece of work. And without it, a company-wide knowledge base simply cannot be approved in many organisations.

The honest calculation of effort

Running LibreChat yourself costs no licence fee. It costs time, and that is not a one-off:

Initial installation and model connection — manageable, often one to two days
Security updates — ongoing, and not optional for an externally reachable application
Backup, monitoring, recovery — the part few people think about before the first outage
Roles, permissions, SSO integration — depending on your identity infrastructure
Model maintenance — new models appear weekly, old ones are deprecated
Person dependency — the decisive question: what happens when the person who set this up leaves the company?

For a team with its own DevOps capability and the willingness to carry this permanently, self-hosting is a perfectly legitimate decision. We say that openly — and we also advise customers who take exactly that route.

When self-hosting is the right choice

You have a DevOps team that can and wants to take on operations permanently.
Your requirements are covered by the standard scope of LibreChat.
You do not need existing permissions mirrored in the knowledge base.
You want full control over every line of code and the freedom to fork it yourself.

When CompanyGPT is the better choice

When a knowledge base with correct permission mirroring is needed — especially with SharePoint.
When AI should be available directly in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.
When cost and usage transparency is required for budget control and internal cost allocation.
When nobody in-house can or wants to be responsible for ongoing operations.
When you need compliance support: we bring AI training and the classification under the EU AI Act along with us.

What you keep in both cases

As a customer too, you have full access to the entire configuration, and the system runs in your own cloud tenant — Azure, Google Cloud or sovereign on STACKIT. You can manage the system yourself with your own IT team at any time. No vendor lock-in, no tenancy with a third-party provider.

Conclusion

We are not competing against LibreChat — we build on it and give the project visibility. The question is not “CompanyGPT or LibreChat”, but: do you want to build the operations and the enterprise extensions yourself, or do you want to obtain them as a maintained service?

If you can and want to do it yourself: go ahead, LibreChat is a good project. If instead you need a knowledge base with correct permissions, AI in Office and a cost overview without assigning a dedicated team to it — then that is exactly our work.

Sources

Retrieved on 23 August 2026:

LibreChat LICENSE (MIT) — https://github.com/danny-avila/LibreChat/blob/main/LICENSE
ClickHouse acquires LibreChat — https://clickhouse.com/blog/clickhouse-acquires-librechat
LibreChat documentation — https://www.librechat.ai/docs

Note on the information given: All statements about other vendors’ products are based on their publicly available documentation as of the date stated. Vendors continuously develop their products, features and terms — the vendor’s current information is always authoritative. If any statement appears outdated or inaccurate to you, drop us a line at info@innfactory.ai; we will check and correct it promptly. This comparison is not a substitute for legal or data protection advice in an individual case.

CompanyGPT vs. LibreChat: Self-Host or Managed Service?