Chatvia vs Botpress: one bill, not two#

Botpress charges a monthly plan and then bills the AI your agent uses as "AI Spend" on top of it. Chatvia, the self-hosted platform I built, is free, and the only AI bill is the one from your provider. What each of those two models buys you is the question I want to answer.

In short#

Botpress is the better fit when your developers want to script complex bots in a hosted studio and the plan plus AI Spend fits the budget. I would pick Chatvia if you want a finished AI agent on your own server, with your own models, guardrails you switch on, and no monthly plan to carry.

What Botpress is#

Botpress is a hosted builder for AI agents. You design the agent in a visual studio, add code where you need it, and connect apps from its integrations hub. It runs on Botpress's cloud. Some parts, like the SDK and the integrations, are open source. The platform itself is not.

There is a free plan. Paid plans run from about $89 to about $495 a month. On top of the plan, the AI your agent uses is billed as "AI Spend".

What Chatvia is#

Chatvia is a free platform for AI chat agents that you install on your own server with one command. An agent answers from your files, your websites and your Q&A pairs, and it works on your website, in Slack, Teams, WhatsApp and more.

You get the full source code. There are no plans and no seats.

Two bills or one#

With Botpress you pay twice. The plan comes first, about $89 to $495 a month, before the agent has answered a single question. Then AI Spend comes on top as it answers.

With Chatvia the software costs nothing. You pay your AI provider for what the model uses, at the provider's price, and I add nothing on top. A typical answer from a fast model costs a fraction of a cent. Run an open-weight model on your own hardware and the AI cost can be zero.

There is no limit on agents, teams or replies, with or without a key. A Pro license key is $199 a year. It adds more workspaces, the API, capabilities and forms and hides the "Powered by Chatvia" line.

Where it runs#

Botpress runs your agents, your chats and your knowledge on its own cloud. You cannot take the platform and run it yourself.

Chatvia runs on a server you choose: your cloud account, your data center, or a machine in your office. Chats and documents stay there unless you send them to an AI provider you picked. And since you have all the source code, you can read exactly what it does with them.

Which model answers#

Botpress gives you a list of hosted models to pick from.

Chatvia lets you choose any model: OpenAI, Gemini, Mistral, Groq, OpenRouter, or your own server with Ollama or vLLM. Each agent can use a different one. Open-weight models you run yourself are a first-class choice, not a workaround.

Guardrails you build, or guardrails you switch on#

In Botpress, a safety check is something you build into your flow.

In Chatvia, the guardrails are ready on day one. They catch prompt injection, mask personal data like card numbers and phone numbers, keep the agent on topic, and stop abusive language. Answers can be checked before the visitor sees them. A monitor mode shows what the guardrails would do before they block anything, and a test console lets you try any message by hand. I built that console because I did not trust my own guardrails until I could watch them work.

Tools#

Botpress connects to apps through its integrations hub, and your developers write code for anything else.

Chatvia agents use 24 ready-made connectors, like GitHub, Linear, HubSpot, Salesforce and Notion, or any MCP server. They can call your own HTTP endpoints as custom functions. For each tool you choose: it runs, it waits for a person's OK, or it never runs. Every call is logged with its input and its result, and you can cap how often a tool may be called.

Channels and handoff#

Here the two are close, and I will not pretend otherwise.

Botpress covers web, WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, Slack, Teams and more. Chatvia covers a chat widget, a hosted chat page, voice chats, Slack, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Telegram and a REST API.

Both can hand a chat to a person. In Botpress that needs a paid plan. In Chatvia your team takes over a widget chat live from the dashboard, at no cost.

When Botpress wins#

If your developers want to script complex, many-step bots in a visual studio, Botpress is built for exactly that. If you never want to run a server, it is hosted and you are done. And if the monthly plan plus AI Spend fits your budget, the two bills are not a problem.

My verdict#

Botpress is a capable studio, and you pay for it twice: a plan, then AI Spend. Chatvia gives you a finished AI agent with a knowledge base, tools, guardrails and handoff, on your own server. You keep your data, you pick any model, and you pay only for the AI you use.

Install Chatvia in a few minutes and compare your first month's AI bill with the plan you were about to buy.

Prices are from Botpress's pages and public reviews in October 2026. They change often, so check them before you choose.