SillyTavern is a locally installed interface for interacting with text-generation LLMs, image-generation engines, and text-to-speech voice models. Users can create, import, and switch character cards, then resume or review their chat histories. The interface also includes group chats, lorebooks, personas, prompt controls, chat commands, scripting, and built-in retrieval-augmented generation. Extensions can add character sprites, chat summaries and translation, image generation, text-to-speech, and web search. It supports local and cloud model backends, including KoboldCpp, llama.cpp, Ollama, OpenAI, Claude, Mistral, OpenRouter, and AI Horde. SillyTavern is free and open source under AGPL-3.0, and provides no hosted service. The project says it does not programmatically track user data, though cloud providers may log information sent to their services. Local use requires support for NodeJS 20 or higher; documentation recommends an NVIDIA 3000-series GPU with at least 6GB of VRAM for local inference. Performance may degrade when a character library exceeds 1,000 characters.
Who it is for
SillyTavern is intended for AI hobbyists and power users who want control over their prompts. It suits people comfortable with locally installing and configuring an interface.
What is good
- Free and open source under AGPL-3.0.
- Supports local and cloud model backends.
- Includes character chats, group chats, and lorebooks.
- No hosted service or programmatic user tracking.
What to know first
- Requires support for NodeJS 20 or higher.
- Cloud providers may log data sent to them.
- Performance may degrade above 1,000 characters.
- No native mobile apps.
Verdict
SillyTavern offers extensive prompt and character-chat controls without charging for the interface. Users considering local inference should note its system requirements and the performance limitation for large character libraries.
SillyTavern plans and pricing
All plansCompared on AI roleplay chatbots
- Free plan
- Yes
- Persistent memory
- Yes
- Voice chat
- Yes
- Native mobile apps
- No
