// the find
hubtype/botonic
Build chatbots and conversational experiences using React
Botonic is a React-based framework for building chatbots that run on WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, and a web widget. It targets teams who already know React and want to write bot logic as components with JSX rather than YAML configs or vendor drag-and-drop builders. Backed by Hubtype, so there's a commercial cloud deployment path alongside the open-source self-host option.
React component model for bot actions is genuinely useful — routing, rendering, and state management feel familiar to any frontend dev; plugin architecture is well-scoped with real integrations for Dialogflow, Watson, Luis, and Contentful rather than just stubs; monorepo is well-organized with per-package CI workflows and separate concerns between core, CLI, and renderers; examples include a flow-builder pattern that shows how to wire a no-code CMS to bot logic.
617 stars after years of development is a warning sign — this never broke out of Hubtype's own customer base, which means community support, third-party plugins, and Stack Overflow answers are thin; the last blog post is from 2021 and the office hours link is a 2021 post, so the public-facing momentum is frozen even if commits continue; `botonic deploy` routes through Hubtype's own infrastructure, making the open-source path feel like a funnel rather than a first-class option; Node v10 is listed as the minimum requirement in the README which is years end-of-life and signals the docs haven't been maintained.