Starlix vs Botpress: build your own agent, or train one on your content?
Somebody on your team has opened a flow builder, dragged out the first five nodes and realised the customer support agent is going to take a few weeks. That's the real question in this comparison: do you want to build an agent, or train one?
Short answer: Botpress is a platform for building AI agents, with knowledge bases, workflows and many channels, and it suits teams with a developer who wants to design the agent's behavior in detail. Starlix is an AI agent for support, sales and ecommerce that you train on your own content and put live without building flows. Both have a free plan. Botpress paid plans start at $150/month; Starlix's start at $19.99/month.
We make Starlix. Botpress figures come from Botpress's pricing page as of October 2026, on annual billing.
Pricing side by side
| Starlix | Botpress | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 50 AI conversations/month | 100 conversations/month, 3 seats, 3 agents |
| First paid plan | $19.99/mo: 100 AI conversations | $150/mo: 250 conversations, $25 AI usage |
| Mid plan | $68.99/mo: 500 AI conversations, 10 seats | $750/mo: 1,500 conversations, $150 AI usage, unlimited seats |
| Extra volume | $0.40 per AI conversation | $65 per 100 conversations on Plus |
| Who sets it up | Support or ops team | Usually a developer |
Botpress's free plan has more conversations. Past that, Starlix costs less at the same volume: 500 AI conversations is $68.99 on Starlix Pro, while Botpress Plus is $150 for 250. Botpress plans also include a fixed amount of AI usage, so check how far it goes with the models you plan to use.
Build vs train
Botpress gives you building blocks: you design how the agent reasons, which tools it calls and how each conversation flows. That's powerful when your use case is unusual, and it needs someone to build and maintain it.
Starlix is set up for the common job: answer customers from your content, act in your systems and hand off to a person when needed. You add your website and docs, set the tone and guidelines, and connect channels. There's no flow to design, which means the person who knows your customers can set it up without waiting on engineering.
Control without a builder
Teams pick a builder because they want control. Starlix gives you control in a different place. AI Actions call your systems through webhooks, each marked read, write or irreversible, with optional human approval. Every conversation keeps an audit log of the sources and tools used. You decide what the agent may do, and you can check what it did.
Where Botpress may be the better fit
You have developers and a use case that doesn't fit a support or sales agent. You want several agents with custom logic. You need a channel or integration only a custom build covers.
Where Starlix is the better fit
Your team is support, sales or ecommerce, not engineering. You want an agent live on your website, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger this week. You run a Shopify store and want live order status and product suggestions without building them.
FAQ
Do I need a developer to use Starlix? No. You train it on your website and documents and connect channels from the dashboard. AI Actions use webhooks, so connecting your own systems is the one step where a developer helps.
Which is cheaper? On the free plan Botpress includes more conversations. On paid plans, Starlix costs less at the same volume.