bothto

Bothto is a cross-platform framework for building conversational agents. It provides a modular runtime, development tools, and connectors that help developers create chatbots that run across websites, mobile apps, and messaging platforms.

Bothto originated as an open-source project released in 2019 by the Bothto Collective, a community of contributors from the software and education sectors. It is maintained through a community governance model that emphasizes transparency, documentation, and open collaboration.

The architecture centers on a minimal core and a ecosystem of plugins. The core includes a dialogue manager, a policy engine, and a lightweight runtime. Adapters connect Bothto to channels such as web chat, Slack, Teams, Discord, and SMS. NLP functionality is pluggable, enabling integration with external services for intent recognition and entity extraction. A flow-based designer and a CLI facilitate authoring, testing, and deployment. Security features include role-based access, encryption at rest, and configurable data retention.

Deployment options cover local development, cloud hosting, and containerized environments. The platform supports both on-device and server-based inference where appropriate, and provides monitoring hooks and analytics to observe conversation quality and performance. Bothto is released under an open-source license and maintains an active ecosystem of modules and example projects.

Use cases include customer support chatbots, knowledge-base assistants, and educational tutors. The project is commonly used in academic settings to teach practical chatbot development and in small teams seeking a flexible alternative to larger commercial platforms. Critics note that while Bothto offers strong customization, it requires more setup than some turnkey solutions.