BYOAIK (Bring Your Own AI Key) is a directory of AI tools that run on your own API key.

LibreChat

Open-source, self-hosted ChatGPT alternative unifying many AI providers with agents, MCP, and RAG.

Website Source code

Category:
AI Chat Interfaces
Maintenance:
Actively developed (last commit today)
Pricing:
Open Source
Open source:
Yes (MIT)
Self-hostable:
Yes
Local-first:
Yes
Platforms:
Web, Self-hosted, Docker
AI providers (bring your own key):
OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Azure OpenAI, OpenRouter, Groq, Mistral, DeepSeek, Ollama, Custom / OpenAI-compatible
API key storage:
Stored by vendor, encryption claimed
Key risk level:
MEDIUM
Trust score:
79/100

LibreChat is an MIT-licensed, self-hosted AI chat platform that provides a polished ChatGPT-style web UI across many providers. It supports AI agents, Model Context Protocol (MCP), artifacts, a sandboxed code interpreter, RAG/file chat, conversation search, multimodal input, and secure multi-user auth. BYOK is a first-class feature: administrators set provider keys (e.g. ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, OPENAI_API_KEY, GOOGLE_KEY) to 'user_provided', which prompts each end user to enter their own API key in the WebUI under settings. Custom OpenAI-compatible endpoints likewise accept apiKey: user_provided and even a user-supplied baseURL, so users can plug in their own keys for essentially any compatible provider. Deployable via Docker, docker-compose, and cloud templates (Railway, Zeabur, Sealos).

Why this trust score (79/100)

Trust measures how the tool treats your API key and how much of that has been verified. It contains no popularity signal.

  • Key Safety 11/25: The key is stored server-side, encrypted, on an instance you control.
  • Request Routing 17/20: Requests go straight from you to the AI provider.
  • Transparency 20/20: Source is public under MIT, so anyone can check how the key is handled. Key handling was located in the published source.
  • Privacy 14/15: Local-first: it works without sending your data anywhere. Can be self-hosted, so the data path stays inside infrastructure you control.
  • Maintenance 10/10: Actively developed: commits within the last three months.
  • Verification Confidence 7/10: Key handling was found in the published source by BYOAIK's scanner.

What was checked

Verification tier SOURCE_VERIFIED, derived from the evidence below and not set by hand.

  • [REPORTED · RESEARCH] This listing was compiled by an AI-assisted research pass over the tool's public website, README and documentation. No person independently confirmed it.
  • [STRONG · SOURCE_SCAN] Supports a local model backend, so it can run with no cloud provider key at all. source
  • [STRONG · SOURCE_SCAN] The user supplies their own OpenAI key: the project references its API key variable. source
  • [STRONG · SOURCE_SCAN] The user supplies their own Anthropic key: the project references its API key variable. source
  • [STRONG · SOURCE_SCAN] The user supplies their own Google Gemini key: the project references its API key variable. source
  • [STRONG · SOURCE_SCAN] The user supplies their own Groq key: the project references its API key variable. source
  • [STRONG · SOURCE_SCAN] The user supplies their own Mistral key: the project references its API key variable. source
  • [STRONG · SOURCE_SCAN] The user supplies their own DeepSeek key: the project references its API key variable. source
  • [STRONG · SOURCE_SCAN] The user supplies their own Cohere key: the project references its API key variable. source
  • [STRONG · SOURCE_SCAN] The user supplies their own xAI Grok key: the project references its API key variable. source
  • [STRONG · SOURCE_SCAN] The user supplies their own Fireworks key: the project references its API key variable. source
  • [STRONG · SOURCE_SCAN] The user supplies their own Perplexity key: the project references its API key variable. source
  • [CONFIRMED · SOURCE_SCAN] Ships a container definition, so it can be self-hosted on your own infrastructure. source
  • [CONFIRMED · SOURCE_SCAN] Most recent commit 2026-08-14, about 0 month(s) ago. source

How your API key is handled

Your API key is stored encrypted on the server instance you control. Requests are sent directly to the AI provider. Because it can be self-hosted, your key never has to touch a third-party backend.

Setup

Sign in, open settings, and enter your provider API key. It is stored encrypted on your server.