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Thunderbolt

Cross-platform AI chat client you can deploy on your own servers

  • AI apps
  • Self-hosted alternatives
View on GitHub
Website

What it is

Thunderbolt is an AI client for web, desktop, and mobile that works with frontier cloud models, OpenAI-compatible providers, or local runtimes like Ollama and llama.cpp. It stores chats in local-first SQLite with optional multi-device sync and end-to-end encryption, and supports MCP connections, skills, projects, voice mode, and handing threads to external coding agents. Organizations that want an assistant on their own infrastructure can run the backend using Docker Compose or Kubernetes, or provision it on AWS through Pulumi, with OIDC and SAML sign-in.

Images

Facts

Stars
4,799 GitHub stars.
4,799

Forks
333
Commits
1,398
Contributors
27
Language
TypeScript
License
MPL-2.0
Last commit
Oct 20, 2026
On GitHub since
July 2025
First release
October 2025
Platforms
web, macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, CLI, self-hosted
Self-hostable
Yes
Alternative to
ChatGPT, Claude
Tags
  • ai-assistant
  • mcp-server
  • file-sync
  • local-ai
  • chatbot
  • encryption

Last synced from GitHub on Oct 20, 2026

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What people are saying

Updated Oct 21, 2026
  • Hacker NewsMozilla ThunderboltApr 16, 2026 · 370 points · 339 comments (opens Hacker News in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“So Mozilla Releases an "ai client" (with little explanation of what that means when the rest of us use "harness", "gateway", etc...) Named "thunderbolt"…”Apr 16, 2026 · 21 likes · 3 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Hacker NewsMozilla Introduces Thunderbolt: Enterprise AI You ControlApr 17, 2026 · 1 point · 2 comments (opens Hacker News in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Mozilla Thunderbolt View Article | Join the HN Conversation Summary of HN discussion 🧵👇”Apr 17, 2026 · 1 like · 1 reply (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“thunderbird/thunderbolt: AI You Control: Choose your models. Own your data. Eliminate vendor lock-in. #devopsish”Apr 22, 2026 · 1 like · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“thunderbird/thunderbolt AI You Control: Choose your models. Own your data. Eliminate vendor lock-in. Thunderbolt AI You Control: Choose your models. Own your…”Apr 19, 2026 · 1 like · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“open-source, cross-platform AI client by Mozilla”Apr 30, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“thunderbird/thunderbolt AI You Control: Choose your models. Own your data. Eliminate vendor lock-in. Thunderbolt AI You Control: Choose your models. Own your…”Apr 22, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Thunderbolt : AI You Control The Open-Source, Cross-Platform, Extensible AI Client www.thunderbolt.io”Apr 18, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Mozilla Thunderbolt comments #thunderbolt.io”Apr 17, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Thunderbolt, an open source AI client by Mozilla. Sweet 🤘🏽 #ai #llm #mozilla”Apr 17, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Thunderbolt, an open source AI client by Mozilla. Sweet 🤘🏽 #ai #llm #mozilla”Apr 17, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Mozilla Thunderbolt (”Apr 16, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Mozilla Thunderbolt Article URL: Comments URL: Points: 272 # Comments: 236 Fuente:”Apr 16, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Mozilla Thunderbolt (www.thunderbolt.io) Discussion | Main Link”Apr 16, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Mozilla Thunderbolt (”Apr 16, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Mozilla Thunderbolt (”Apr 16, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Mozilla Thunderbolt (”Apr 16, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Mozilla Thunderbolt”Apr 16, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)
  • Bluesky“Mozilla Thunderbolt | Discussion”Apr 16, 2026 · 0 likes · 0 replies (opens Bluesky in a new tab)