Ethora: The Userlike Alternative That Runs on Your Own EU Servers
Data control taken one step further: run the AI chat agent, the chat server and the model on your own infrastructure in the region you choose. The agent answers from your website and documents, and a person joins the same conversation when needed.
The honest short answer
Ethora vs Userlike: the honest short answer
Userlike, now called Lime Connect, is a German customer messaging platform: website chat, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, email and SMS in one inbox, with an AI agent, an AI Copilot and live translation, hosted on European servers and offered as a GDPR-compliant service. Ethora is an open-source chat and AI platform that goes a step further on data control: you can run the chat server, the AI agent and the model itself on your own servers in the EU or any region you choose, or on a dedicated server Ethora runs in your cloud account.
Stay with Userlike if
- You need WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, email or SMS in the same inbox as website chat
- A hosted service on European servers meets your data protection requirements
- You want a ready team inbox with seats, AI Copilot and live translation
Choose Ethora if
- Your policy requires the chat data and the AI model on infrastructure you control
- You want to choose the model per agent, including an open model you host yourself
- Developers will build on it: open API, chat SDKs for web and mobile, an MCP server
Best for: Userlike for a European service team that wants many messaging channels in one GDPR-compliant hosted tool; Ethora for an AI website agent where you own the servers, the model and the data.
Side by side
Ethora vs Userlike: capabilities at a glance
The ten questions buyers ask most when data protection drives the choice of an AI chat agent. Userlike facts come from the public Lime Connect website and pricing page.
Ethora
How to read this table
Userlike facts are taken from connect.lime-technologies.com and its pricing page (userlike.com now redirects there), checked 16 October 2026. Prices exclude VAT. Check its pricing page for the current limits and add-ons. If something here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Why teams switch
Why teams move from Userlike to Ethora
Teams choose Userlike for European hosting and GDPR. Some then need more: the AI model under their own control, the whole stack inside their own network, or a chat they can build into their own products.
Userlike
Hosted messaging in Europe
Ethora
Open-source chat and AI platform
An honest view
When Userlike is the better choice
Ethora is not a multi-channel messaging inbox. If these describe you, Userlike is likely the better fit.
WhatsApp and other messenger channels
Userlike brings WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, email and SMS into one inbox, with WhatsApp campaigns as an add-on. Ethora does not offer those channels.
A hosted tool is enough
If European hosting with a data processing agreement meets your requirements and you do not want to run servers, Userlike gives you that without the operations work.
A team inbox for many agents
Seats, an AI Copilot that suggests answers and summarises chats, workflows and live translation are built for a service team working all day in one inbox.
Build it on Ethora
Everything you need for an AI chat agent under your control
The pieces most teams use when data control is the reason they move to Ethora.
Self-hosted LLM AI agent
Point an agent at Ollama, vLLM or another OpenAI-compatible endpoint and keep prompts and answers on your servers.
Run it on your own modelGet Ethora on your servers
Docker Compose, Helm, AWS and Azure Marketplace images, or a dedicated server Ethora runs in your cloud account.
See install optionsAI chat widget for your website
One script tag adds a floating AI chat widget to any site. Visitors chat without signing in.
See the AI chat widgetRAG chatbot on your own content
Crawl your website, upload your documents, and see which sources each answer used.
How the RAG chatbot worksAlso comparing LiveChat?
LiveChat is seat-based live chat with an AI agent added. See how an AI-first setup on Ethora compares.
Ethora vs LiveChatAlso comparing Olark?
Olark sells a website AI agent built for lead capture. See how Ethora compares on price, models and hosting.
Ethora vs OlarkAI agents on customer websites, built with Ethora
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 your website AI agent from Userlike to Ethora
Start on the free cloud plan to test answers, then move to a dedicated or self-hosted deployment in your region. See the AI website agent case studies.
Collect your knowledge
Gather the help center articles, documents and website pages your Userlike AI agent answers from, and the questions visitors ask most.
Create the agent in Ethora
Sign up free, create an app and an AI agent (start from the support agent template), crawl your website and upload the documents.
Choose where it runs
Keep it on our cloud, or deploy Ethora on your own servers or a dedicated server in your cloud region, and point the agent at the model you want, including one you host.
Set the instructions
Write the agent’s system prompt: tone, languages, what it must not answer, and when to bring in a person. Set its name, avatar, greeting and colours with the live preview.
Swap the website chat
Remove the Userlike widget code and add
<script src="https://widget.chat.ethora.com/assistant.js" data-app-id="YOUR_APP_ID"></script>before</body>, or install the Ethora plugin on WordPress. Keep Userlike for messenger channels if you still need them.Test and watch
Run ten real questions in the Try it chat, which shows the sources behind each answer, then read the widget conversations in the admin for a week and add missing knowledge.
Userlike alternative FAQ
What is a GDPR-friendly alternative to Userlike?
Ethora lets you run the chat server, the AI agent and the model on your own servers in the EU, or on a dedicated server in your own cloud account and region. It has configurable retention, per-user erasure, admin roles, two-step verification and an audit trail. GDPR compliance of each deployment depends on how you configure and host it.
Can I run the AI model on my own servers?
Yes. Each Ethora agent can use a model you host through an OpenAI-compatible endpoint such as Ollama or vLLM, so prompts and answers stay on your infrastructure. Our example setup ran a 3B model on a 4 vCPU, 8 GB CPU-only virtual machine and answered short replies in 6 to 8 seconds; larger models need more hardware.
Does Ethora support WhatsApp like Userlike?
No. Ethora covers the chat widget on your website and chat inside your own web and mobile apps through its SDKs. If WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, email or SMS in one inbox is the main need, Userlike is the better fit, and some teams keep it for those channels.
Does Ethora answer in German and other languages?
Yes, when the model supports the language: the widget answers in the visitor’s language, and a university course uses it in Chinese. The chat SDK also offers per-user real-time message translation.
Is there a free plan?
Yes. Ethora’s free plan is $0 per month with 1,000 monthly active users and no credit card, and includes the AI agent, the website widget and the chat features. The core is open source (AGPL), so you can also self-host it.
Is Ethora suitable for healthcare or other regulated businesses?
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.
An AI chat agent on your servers, with your model
Test it free on our cloud today, then run it in your own EU region with the model you choose.
