Brethof AI Reviews

SillyTavern review

Free character chat front end, any model, no account

Not sponsoredModels & AI Infrastructure

Tested on Linux · Free · Open source

SillyTavern is a free, self-hosted browser front end for chatting with language models, built around characters and lorebooks. We tested its Docker image on Linux, with our model through Ollama.

The good

  • Free, no account, no tracking. Free under the AGPL, no account, and no tracking, its makers say. Out of the box it still contacts AI Horde, downloads a tokenizer from GitHub and auto-updates extensions.
  • Our Ollama, no key. In its connections panel we chose Chat Completion, Custom, typed our Ollama address and left the optional key empty. It listed our model.
  • PDF read in the browser. Attach a PDF from the Wand menu and it is read in the browser and sent whole with every question. No embedder or database is needed.

The not so good

  • Document library is fiddly. The document library stays off until you switch on files. Its default embedder comes from Hugging Face and runs on the CPU, so we used our GPU one. Answers show no source.
  • Made for roleplay power users. It warns it is aimed at advanced users and starts on AI Horde. Replies stop at 300 tokens by default, which cut our first answer, and the context holds 4,095.

Our verdict

Recommended with caveats

One container, no account, our Ollama with no key, and an attached PDF stays in context for every question. The catch: a roleplay tool for power users, with a document library that is off by default and shows no sources.

Reviewed: SillyTavern 1.19.0 · facts checked 2026-10-22

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