How a Young Bilibili Creator Built AstrBot Before the AI Boom and What It Reveals About Bilibili’s Tech Community

In late 2022 Bilibili creator Soulter (UP ID: SoulterL) started the open‑source project AstrBot, releasing its first version on GitHub on January 9 2023. AstrBot evolved into an agentic chatbot orchestration platform that integrates various AI capabilities across instant‑messaging services such as QQ, Enterprise WeChat, Feishu, DingTalk, Telegram and Slack, and provides a Web UI, sandbox, sub‑agents, a plugin system and hot‑reload support.

By March 2026 AstrBot had attracted roughly 2.6 k GitHub stars, more than 1 800 forks and 234 contributors, and its README advertises over 1 000 one‑click installable plugins. In contrast, the competing project OpenClaw amassed about 330 k stars and quickly became a narrative‑driven personal assistant that ordinary users can understand at a glance. The interview highlights that OpenClaw’s appeal lies in its product‑level storytelling, while AstrBot’s strength is its extensible developer‑oriented architecture (multi‑Bot support, session isolation, plugin ecosystem).

The article also details the media impact: OpenClaw’s Bilibili videos have exceeded 4 million views, surpassing the most‑watched OpenClaw videos on YouTube. Although AstrBot receives less mainstream exposure, Bilibili’s comment sections turn tutorial videos into semi‑FAQ repositories, with viewers asking about deployment details, security boundaries and plugin behavior. Bilibili’s AI content ecosystem grew dramatically in 2025—over 80 million monthly viewers for AI topics, nearly 100 000 active AI creators, a 50 % year‑over‑year increase in AI watch time, and an 83 % rise in daily AI uploads—making the platform a primary feedback loop for AI developers.

Soulter’s personal background reinforces the hybrid creator model: he began programming on a phone during middle school, built instant‑messaging tools, accounting apps and a floating‑ball utility, and now studies at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications while identifying as a “full‑stack indie developer.” He blends coding with video production, discussing architecture one moment and anime the next, embodying the mixed‑type Bilibili creator who can both write code and edit videos.

From a broader perspective, the piece argues that Bilibili’s value goes beyond simple video distribution; it offers a community where technical projects are not only seen but also discussed, iterated and culturally embedded. AstrBot’s sustained evolution—continuous documentation, plugin ecosystem, and community contributions—demonstrates that open‑source AI tools can thrive without large‑company branding, provided they receive the kind of deep, collaborative feedback that Bilibili uniquely supplies.