ChatDev
Open source platform for configurable multi-agent systems
ChatDev is an open source project by OpenBMB that originally simulated a virtual software company made of cooperating LLM agents. Since ChatDev 2.0 (January 2026) it is a general platform where agents, workflows and tasks are defined via YAML configuration or a visual drag and drop canvas and executed as a multi-agent system. A web console shows logs and artifacts in real time and allows human feedback, and a Python SDK runs workflows from code. It targets developers and researchers who want to experiment with multi-agent workflows. The software is licensed under Apache-2.0; costs only arise with the chosen LLM provider.
Good fit if
Focus: Developers and researchers experimenting with and customizing multi-agent workflows
- your project is about Software development with agent teams, Deep research or Data visualization
- someone on your team writes code
Probably not if
- nobody on your team writes code (2/5 for use without developers)
Key figures
- Usable without developers
- 2/5
- Scalability
- 2/5
- Integrations
- 2/5
- Versioning
- 2/5
- Observability
- 3/5
Editorial rating on a scale from 1 to 5. Methodology
Fact sheet
- Category
- Developer
- Type
- Open source platform for configurable multi-agent systems
- Licence
- Open Source (Apache-2.0)
- Pricing
- Open SourceFree under Apache-2.0. Costs only arise from usage of the configured LLM provider.
- Deployment
- Self-Hosted, Docker
- Models
- OpenAI-kompatible APIs (per API_KEY und BASE_URL)
- RAG
- No
- Multi-Agent
- Yes
- SSO, roles (RBAC)
- SSO no, RBAC no
- Latest version
- 2.0 (07.01.2026, kein GitHub-Release-Tag)
- GitHub stars
- 34,500
Key features
- Multi-agent systems via configuration (ChatDev 2.0)
- Visual workflow canvas
- YAML workflows with templates
- Real-time logs and human in the loop
- Python SDK
Typical use cases
- Software development with agent teams
- Deep research
- Data visualization
- Prototypes for multi-agent research
Sources
Checked on 10 Oct 2026
Market notes
Changes to ChatDev by email
We let you know when the status, pricing or license of ChatDev changes, together with the weekly market notes.
Implementation
Get ChatDev implemented
Free for you. Partners only pay for requests they accept.
Alternatives
Similar systems
Similar in category, features or use cases.
- DeveloperCAMEL-AICAMEL-AI is an open-source framework and research community focused on multi-agent systems. The framework provides role-playing agents, agent societies, tools for synthetic data generation and simulation environments. It grew out of the 2023 CAMEL paper on communication between agents and supports a large number of model providers.View profile
- DeveloperMetaGPTMetaGPT is a multi-agent framework that assigns different roles to GPTs to form a collaborative software entity for complex tasks. It automates the entire software development process from requirements to documentation. The system is characterized by end-to-end automation with a single input, multi-AI role collaboration (product managers, architects, project managers, engineers), and standardized operating procedures (SOPs).View profile
- DeveloperAgent SquadAgent Squad is an open source framework for Python, TypeScript and Swift that distributes requests across multiple specialized agents. A classifier selects the right agent for each message based on agent descriptions and conversation history; the SupervisorAgent additionally coordinates a team of agents in parallel using an agents-as-tools approach. The project was formerly called Multi-Agent Orchestrator, was hosted under awslabs and is now maintained by 2FastLabs. It is licensed under Apache-2.0 and runs locally, in containers or on AWS Lambda.View profile
- DeveloperHaystackHaystack by deepset is a Python framework that developers use to build modular pipelines and agents for RAG, semantic search and assistants. The Agent component calls the model and tools in a loop, shares data via a typed state schema, loads tools from MCP servers and allows human review before tool calls. For multi-agent systems, an agent is wrapped as an AgentTool and given to a coordinator agent as a tool, creating coordinator/specialist architectures. Haystack is licensed under Apache-2.0; deepset additionally offers the Haystack Enterprise Platform with a free Studio plan and an Enterprise plan on request.View profile