Ethora: The SiteGPT Alternative with an Open-Source Core and a Free Plan
Train an AI chatbot on your website and documents, then add it to your site with one line of code. The same job as SiteGPT, plus an open-source core you can self-host, your choice of model (including one you run yourself), a person joining the same conversation, and chat SDKs for your own app.
The honest short answer
Ethora vs SiteGPT: the honest short answer
SiteGPT is a hosted AI customer support chatbot that you train on your website, sitemap, files, YouTube videos and connected sources such as Notion or Google Drive, answering with OpenAI GPT-4.1 models. Ethora does the same core job for your website (crawl your site, add documents, paste one script tag) and adds what a hosted tool does not: an open-source core you can self-host, per-agent model choice including models you run with Ollama or vLLM, a full chat platform where a person can join the conversation, and a free plan to start.
Stay with SiteGPT if
- You want a fully hosted chatbot on OpenAI models with no hosting or model decisions
- You train on sources beyond your website, such as YouTube, Notion, Google Drive, Dropbox or GitHub
- You rely on its helpdesk and messaging integrations (Zendesk, Crisp, Freshdesk Messaging, Slack, Messenger)
Choose Ethora if
- You want to start on a free plan with no credit card, then grow by monthly active users
- You need your own model or your own servers, so content and conversations stay inside your perimeter
- The chatbot is the start of a bigger chat project: human handoff, chat SDKs for your app, voice and video calls
Best for: SiteGPT for a hosted support chatbot on OpenAI models with many source connectors; Ethora for an AI website chatbot you can own, self-host and grow into a full chat product.
Side by side
Ethora vs SiteGPT: capabilities at a glance
The ten questions buyers ask most when choosing an AI chatbot trained on their website. SiteGPT facts come from its public website, pricing page and security page.
Ethora
How to read this table
SiteGPT facts are taken from sitegpt.ai, its pricing page and its security page, checked 16 October 2026. Plans and limits change, so check their pricing page for the current state. If something here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Why teams switch
Why teams move from SiteGPT to Ethora
Both will answer visitor questions from your website. The reasons to switch are about how you start, who owns the stack, which model answers, and what the chatbot can grow into.
SiteGPT
Hosted AI support chatbot
Ethora
Open-source chat and AI platform
An honest view
When SiteGPT is the better choice
We would rather you pick the right tool. SiteGPT is likely the better fit in these cases.
Content beyond your website
SiteGPT can train on YouTube videos and connected sources such as Notion, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box and GitHub. Ethora trains on your crawled website and uploaded files.
Helpdesk and messaging integrations
If your support team lives in Zendesk, Crisp, Freshdesk or Slack, or you want Messenger and WhatsApp, SiteGPT lists those integrations ready to switch on.
No decisions about hosting or models
If you want the vendor to run everything on OpenAI models and you never want to think about servers, a purely hosted chatbot keeps it simple.
Build it on Ethora
Everything you need to replace SiteGPT
The pieces most teams use when they move their website chatbot to Ethora.
AI chatbot for your website
One script tag adds a floating AI chat widget to any site. It loads asynchronously and keeps its styles isolated from your page.
See the AI chat widgetRAG chatbot on your own content
Crawl your website, upload documents, and check which sources each answer used before you go live.
How the RAG chatbot worksWebsite crawler for RAG
Point the crawler at your site and the agent builds its knowledge from your own pages, with a health view and rebuild when content changes.
See the website crawlerPricing
Free plan with 1,000 monthly active users and no credit card, then Small Business at $149/mo and Enterprise from $599/mo.
Compare plansAlso comparing CustomGPT.ai?
If your chatbot needs to answer from large document sets, see how Ethora compares with CustomGPT.ai.
Ethora vs CustomGPT.aiAlso comparing Elfsight?
If you are weighing a low-cost widget bundle with an AI chatbot, see how Ethora compares with Elfsight.
Ethora vs ElfsightAI chatbots running on Ethora today
Healthcare: HIPAA-compliant AI assistant (RAG) over a medical video library
Dr. Talks is one of the most prominent organizers of online healthcare conferences and summits.
Ethora enabled them to create a context-aware AI-powered chatbot to help users navigate thousands of pages of medical content, correctly referencing pages, authors, videos and timestamps. 100% secure and HIPAA-compliant.
This assistant enhances user experience by simplifying interaction with the platform and reducing search time.
- 1000+ summits indexed by AI bot
- Instant user engagement
- Vector embeddings enable intelligent domain expert AI responses
Communities: fan chat app with second-screen rooms and digital collectibles
A cross-platform social app uniting the automotive community around racing events.
Fan rooms for teams and drivers, second-screen events, and collectibles handed out and traded through chat bots.
- Cross-platform iOS and Android app
- Fan rooms and second-screen events
- Collectibles distributed in chat
Energy: dedicated chat server, AI-agent rooms and a React Native app for a procurement platform
Preshent is a US platform for energy-project procurement with AI-driven decision support.
Ethora provides the conversation layer: a chat room per project workspace shared by people and the AI agent, a dedicated chat server in Preshent’s own cloud, push notifications and a React Native app.
- 1,130 chat rooms, one per workspace
- AI agent as a participant in every room
- Dedicated chat server, 99.99%+ uptime
Professional services: a private, self-hosted AI assistant for a corporate intelligence firm
A London corporate intelligence and investigations firm whose analysts could not use public AI assistants on confidential client work.
Ethora designed a private AI assistant: a single-tenant server with AI agents, document search and an open-weight model on the firm’s own GPU, managed by Ethora in a London cloud region or installed on a workstation in the office.
- Local open-weight LLM, no public AI services
- Single-tenant server, UK hosting
- Cloud GPU or on-premise workstation
Virtual worlds: a 3D multiplayer world built from a book, with AI characters, in one weekend
An internal R&D showcase by Ethora’s founder: Alice in Wonderland, The Tempest and A Christmas Carol as 3D worlds you walk through in first person.
Each room is an Ethora chat, each character an Ethora AI agent with the book as its knowledge; a generator and the hosted MCP server build a new world from any book in about four minutes.
- Built in a weekend on the public SDK, API and MCP
- Characters answer in character from the text
- Daily AI budget keeps a public world affordable
AI agents on customer websites: support, intake and teaching assistants
Clinics, schools and small businesses build AI agents on Ethora themselves and put them on their own websites, often on the day they sign up.
3 examples, from a US mental health provider and a wellness brand to a university pharmacology course.
- WordPress plugin or one script tag
- Answers from the customer’s own pages and documents
- Self-serve, no developer needed
Migration
Moving from SiteGPT to Ethora
Your content is the asset, not the bot. Most teams can run both side by side for a few days and switch the script when the answers match. A US mental health provider went live on Ethora the same day it signed up; see the AI website agent case studies. Also weighing a live chat tool? See Ethora vs Tidio.
List your sources
Note the website and sitemap URLs, files and text you trained SiteGPT on, and copy your chatbot’s instructions and greeting.
Crawl your site in Ethora
Sign up free, create an app and an AI agent (start from the support agent template), crawl your website and upload the same documents.
Set the instructions
Paste your instructions as the agent’s system prompt, then set its name, avatar, greeting and colours with the live preview. Pick the model, cloud or your own.
Swap the embed code
Replace the SiteGPT embed with
<script src="https://widget.chat.ethora.com/assistant.js" data-app-id="YOUR_APP_ID"></script>before</body>, or install the WordPress plugin.Test 10 real questions
Take ten questions visitors really asked and run them in the Try it chat. It shows which sources each answer used, so gaps are easy to spot and fix.
Watch conversations for a week
Read the widget conversations in the admin, add the knowledge that was missing, rebuild, and join conversations yourself where a person should answer.
SiteGPT alternative FAQ
How is Ethora different from SiteGPT?
Both train an AI chatbot on your website and embed it with a snippet. SiteGPT is a hosted support chatbot on OpenAI models with many source connectors and helpdesk integrations. Ethora adds an open-source core, self-hosting or a dedicated server in your cloud account, per-agent model choice including self-hosted models, and a full chat platform with human handoff, chat SDKs for your own apps and voice and video calls.
Can I use my own model instead of OpenAI?
Yes. Each agent can use a cloud model API such as OpenAI or a model you host through an OpenAI-compatible endpoint such as Ollama or vLLM. Our open example repository shows the setup with four environment variables; in our test a 3B model on a 4 vCPU, 8 GB CPU-only server answered short replies in 6 to 8 seconds.
Can a person take over from the AI?
Yes. A person can join the same conversation the visitor is having with the AI agent, and admins can read every widget conversation with its message history.
Is Ethora suitable for healthcare websites?
Ethora is HIPAA and SOC 2 compatible, and a BAA is available on Enterprise and dedicated deployments. Whether a specific project is compliant depends on its configuration and hosting. Chats are encrypted in transit and at rest by default; end-to-end encrypted rooms are an optional per-app setting that is off by default.
Does it work on WordPress, Shopify or Wix?
On WordPress, install the Ethora Chat Assistant plugin from wordpress.org. On any other site builder, paste the one-line script tag into the site’s custom code or footer area, for example theme.liquid on Shopify.
Train an AI chatbot on your website today
Crawl your site, set the instructions, paste one line. Free to start, on our cloud or your own servers, with the model you choose.
