AutoChat vs AI Chatbot Free Models – Customer Support, Live Chat, Virtual Assistant

AutoChat adds an AI-powered chat assistant to WordPress with a local knowledge base, optional Pinecone sync, analytics, and a customizable frontend widget. The plugin is designed to work without Pinecone. Internal content, external sources, uploaded resources, and manual knowledge-base entries are indexed locally first. If Pinecone is enabled and synced, AutoChat can use Pinecone retrieval as an additional source instead of becoming dependent on it. Use AutoChat to: answer common visitor questions automatically build a chat knowledge base from multiple data sources keep a local retrieval path active even when Pinecone is disabled review conversation volume and estimated token usage in the dashboard configure assistant language and widget presentation from wp-admin Features Local-first knowledge retrieval from internal content, external sources, resources, and manual knowledge-base entries Optional Pinecone sync and retrieval fallback React-based admin dashboard Frontend floating chat widget Saved replies for common prompts Conversation analytics and estimated token usage Language selection for assistant replies REST API powered architecture for admin and frontend flows

AI Chatbot Free Models is a fully self-contained AI chatbot platform for WordPress. It provides everything you need to run professional live chat, customer support and virtual-assistant experiences on your website while leaving the choice of the AI model entirely in your hands. There is no paid SaaS behind this plugin. No mandatory subscription, no premium gateway, no external dashboard, no account required with the plugin developer. The only thing you need is access to an AI model: a hosted provider (many of which offer generous free tiers) or a self-hosted, local inference server. Every other component – interface, conversations, knowledge base, notifications, styling – runs on your own WordPress installation and your own database. Bring your own model, keep control of your data Connect OpenRouter, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Run completely free with free-tier models or a local server (llama.cpp, Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM, gateways and proxies). Conversations are stored only if you enable it, in dedicated tables inside your own database. The knowledge base is built from your own published posts and pages – no external crawling, no third-party index. Core features Provider-agnostic AI connection with configurable endpoint, API key and model Dynamic model selection where the provider supports model discovery Streaming responses with live typing indicator Stop generation at any time while a response is being streamed Retry failed responses and start a new conversation without reloading the page Configurable maximum response tokens and streaming timeout with inactivity watchdog Conversation context maintained with a configurable token budget Optional pre-chat form to collect name and email for support and lead generation Live knowledge base with FULLTEXT-indexed search over titles and content, response caching and clickable source citations in answers Per-IP rate limiting and server-side sanitization of conversation history Dedicated database storage with optional message and IP retention (disabled by default) Unread conversation notifications, search and conversation management in the WordPress admin Floating widget (bottom-left or bottom-right) or embedded chat via the [newcodebyte_chatbot] shortcode Extensive appearance customization: colors, images, sounds, widget position Translatable frontend interface, responsive layout, multilingual AI support Modern object-oriented codebase following current WordPress standards Requirements WordPress 5.0 or later (tested up to 7.1) PHP 7.4 or later (compatible with current PHP 8.x releases) MySQL 5.6 or later / MariaDB 10.0 or later (required by the FULLTEXT knowledge base index) An API key for the provider you choose – or none at all, if you use a local OpenAI-compatible server How it works A visitor sends a message from the floating widget or the embedded chat. WordPress receives the request and the plugin prepares the conversation context. The configured provider or endpoint is selected and the request is sent. The response is streamed back to the visitor when streaming is supported. The conversation can optionally be stored in your own database for review. A note on costs The plugin is free and adds no usage fees of its own. AI costs depend exclusively on the provider and model you configure: free models and free quotas are fully supported, and a self-hosted server removes usage costs entirely. Looking for a platform-independent version? A standalone build for non-WordPress websites (HTML, PHP and more) is available on GitHub: https://github.com/NewCodeByte/chatbot-ai-free-models Configuration Open the Chatbot settings page. Depending on the selected provider you can configure: Provider (OpenRouter, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or OpenAI-compatible endpoint) API endpoint and API key Model, selected from discovery or entered manually Maximum response tokens and streaming timeout Knowledge base, pre-chat form, storage options, appearance and sounds Free models on OpenRouter are identified by the :free suffix. When using a local or self-hosted OpenAI-compatible server, simply point the endpoint to your server (for example http://localhost:8080/v1): no external account is required and your traffic never leaves your infrastructure. External Services The plugin can transmit the content of a visitor’s message to the AI provider you configure (OpenRouter, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or a custom endpoint) in order to generate a response. The terms of service and privacy policy of the selected provider apply to that processing. The plugin developer does not control and is not responsible for external providers’ pricing, availability, retention policies or data processing. Privacy Message and IP storage are optional and disabled by default. When enabled, data is stored in dedicated tables inside your own database and can be reviewed, exported or deleted from the admin area. The plugin itself sets no cookies. If you enable storage or the pre-chat form, update your privacy policy to describe the processing. You are responsible for compliance with applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR. Disclaimer AI-generated content can be inaccurate. The plugin developer is not responsible for AI responses, decisions made based on them, provider outages, pricing or API changes, or data processing performed by external providers. Always verify important information independently. Supporting the project AI Chatbot Free Models is developed and maintained as an independent free project. If you find it useful, consider keeping the optional “Powered by NewCodeByte” attribution enabled or supporting development with a donation. Contributions fund development, maintenance, testing and infrastructure.