Open-source AI chatbot for WordPress

Give your WordPress site an AI assistant that answers from your own content.

Alpha Chat indexes your posts, pages, and public custom post types, then answers visitor questions with retrieval-augmented generation. It cites sources, keeps the vector store in MySQL, and skips weak model calls when retrieval has nothing useful.

I built it because most WordPress chatbot plugins either push you into a hosted upsell or bolt a generic bot onto your site. This one is GPL code you can inspect, extend, and uninstall cleanly.

Download Alpha ChatView the code
v0.1.6, Apr 18, 2026WordPress 6.5+PHP 8.2+
The problem

Most AI chat widgets do not know your WordPress site. They just sound confident.

That is risky. A visitor asks about your refund policy, course outline, pricing, plugin docs, or support limits. A generic chatbot guesses. You get a polished answer and a support mess.

01

Hosted vectors add another bill.

Pinecone and Qdrant are useful at scale. Most WordPress sites do not need that bill before the chatbot proves itself.

02

Theme CSS breaks chat UIs.

Buttons, fields, and panels inherit random theme styles. Shadow DOM isolation avoids that fight.

03

Empty retrieval wastes tokens.

If there is no relevant context, Alpha Chat can return your fallback instead of paying for a weak answer.

04

Black-box plugins are hard to trust.

You can inspect the PHP, TypeScript, REST routes, database schema, and uninstall cleanup.

How it works

Alpha Chat turns WordPress content into source-backed answers.

The flow is boring in the right way: chunk content, embed it, retrieve matching passages, call the selected model, and show source cards under the reply.

Index
Posts, pages, and public custom post types are split into chunks and queued through Action Scheduler.
Store
Embeddings live in wp_alpha_chat_chunks. Vector search runs inside WordPress by default.
Answer
OpenAI or Anthropic gets the message, retrieved context, recent history, and current page context.
Hand off
If the visitor still needs help, the contact form stores the message and emails the admin.
retrieval flow

message -> moderation -> embedding -> MySQL vector search -> retrieved chunks -> model response -> source cards

What you get

A WordPress-native AI chatbot, not another hosted wrapper.

Alpha Chat is built around what WordPress site owners actually worry about: speed, data control, support handoff, admin visibility, and plugin cleanup when you uninstall.

Read the plugin readme
Provider choice
Use OpenAI GPT-5.4, GPT-5.4 mini, GPT-4.1, or Anthropic Claude Opus 4.7, Sonnet 4.6, and Haiku 4.5.
Current-page awareness
Version 0.1.6 injects the current URL, title, and up to 4,000 characters of page content into each chat request.
Admin visibility
Dashboard metrics, knowledge base filters, conversations, token usage, sources, contacts, and CSV export are built in.
Performance guardrails
The floating launcher is opt-in. Assets load only on pages using the block or shortcode unless you turn site-wide mode on.
Rate limits
Chat is limited to 30 requests per minute per session. Contact submissions are limited to 5 per hour per IP.
Clean uninstall
Uninstall removes plugin tables, options, post meta, and scheduled Action Scheduler jobs.
Why it is different

Alpha Chat keeps the important parts inside WordPress.

That does not make it the right answer for every site. If you need a managed AI support suite with agents, billing, and enterprise reporting, buy that. If you want clean WordPress code you control, Alpha Chat is the better starting point.

Hosted chatbot

  • −Vector storage usually lives in a vendor system.
  • −Monthly platform fee sits on top of model usage.
  • −Theme and builder CSS can leak into the widget.

Alpha Chat

  • +Vectors live in your WordPress MySQL database by default.
  • +No plugin license fee. You pay your chosen AI provider.
  • +Shadow DOM widget keeps theme styles away from chat UI.

Best fit

Use Alpha Chat when you want a self-controlled WordPress chatbot for docs, product pages, course content, blog archives, or support triage.

Skip it if you need a full help desk suite with human agent routing and enterprise SLAs.

For developers

Swap the pieces you do not want.

The default setup is practical for normal WordPress sites, but it is not locked down. You can replace the LLM provider, embedding provider, or vector store with filters. You can also modify retrieved chunks before they hit the prompt.

alpha_chat_llm_provideralpha_chat_vector_storealpha_chat_retrieved_chunksalpha_chat_display_widget
custom provider hook
add_filter('alpha_chat_llm_provider', function ($default) { return new MyPlugin\Providers\LocalLLM(); });
Install

Install Alpha Chat like a normal WordPress plugin.

Download the ZIP, upload it in WordPress, add your provider keys, index your knowledge base, and place the block or shortcode where you want chat to appear.

1. Upload
Upload alpha-chat.zip in Plugins > Add New.
2. Configure
Add your OpenAI key. Add Anthropic only if you pick Claude.
3. Index
Open Knowledge Base and click Index remaining.
4. Embed
Use the Alpha Chat block, the alpha_chat shortcode, or the floating launcher.

Does Alpha Chat send my content to external services?

Only to the AI provider you configure. Embeddings go through OpenAI. Chat requests go through OpenAI or Anthropic, depending on your settings. Alpha Chat does not send telemetry to a separate vendor endpoint.

Can it work without Pinecone or Qdrant?

Yes. Alpha Chat stores vectors in wp_alpha_chat_chunks and computes cosine similarity in PHP. One less service before you have proved the chatbot is useful.

Will the widget slow down my site?

The floating launcher is off by default. If you do not enable it site-wide, frontend assets load only where you place the block or alpha_chat shortcode, and the script uses defer.

Can I use Claude for chat responses?

Yes. Alpha Chat supports Anthropic Claude Opus 4.7, Sonnet 4.6, and Haiku 4.5 for chat. You still need OpenAI for embeddings and moderation.

Ship it

Put a grounded AI assistant on your WordPress site.

Start with the ZIP. Read the code when you need to. Replace the provider later if your setup demands it.

Download the ZIPView v0.1.6 release