AI Telegram Bot in 2026: python-telegram-bot (29k Stars) vs aiogram vs grammY - Build an LLM Bot in 15 Minutes

Telegram has the friendliest bot API of any chat app. python-telegram-bot (29,383 stars), aiogram (5,818) and grammY (3,705) all connect to it - here is how to pick and build an LLM bot fast.

💡 What You Will Learn

Telegram has the friendliest bot API of any chat app. python-telegram-bot (29,383 stars), aiogram (5,818) and grammY (3,705) all connect to it - here is how to pick and build an LLM bot fast.

📜 Table of Contents

• The short answer
• 15-minute bot with python-telegram-bot
• Picking the right framework
• Real numbers
• FAQ

The short answer

python-telegram-bot (29,383 stars, GPL-3.0) is the most battle-tested Python wrapper - great docs, huge community, sync or async. aiogram (5,818 stars, MIT) is the modern async choice: faster, cleaner code, FSM support for multi-step dialogs. grammY (3,705 stars, MIT) is the TypeScript framework with a plugin ecosystem.

15-minute bot with python-telegram-bot

pip install python-telegram-bot openai

from telegram import Update
from telegram.ext import Application, CommandHandler, MessageHandler, filters
import openai

TOKEN = "YOUR_BOT_TOKEN"

async def chat(update: Update, context):
    r = openai.chat.completions.create(
        model="gpt-4o-mini",
        messages=[{"role": "user", "content": update.message.text}])
    await update.message.reply_text(r.choices[0].message.content)

app = Application.builder().token(TOKEN).build()
app.add_handler(MessageHandler(filters.TEXT, chat))
app.run_polling()

Get the token from @BotFather: /newbot - name - token.

Picking the right framework

Real numbers

• run_polling() handles thousands of users on one process - Telegram's API is pull-based, no webhooks needed for small bots.
• A bot replying via LLM API costs roughly $0.0002-0.004 per message with gpt-4o-mini-class models, or $0 with local Ollama.
• python-telegram-bot receives about 1 million downloads per month.

FAQ

Q: Webhook or polling? A: Polling is fine up to ~10k users. Above that, use webhooks with a domain and HTTPS.

Q: Can the bot remember conversations? A: Yes - store message history per user in a dict, Redis, or SQLite, and send the last N messages as context.

❓ FAQ

Webhook or polling?

Polling is fine up to ~10k users. Above that, use webhooks with a domain and HTTPS.

Can the bot remember conversations?

Yes - store message history per user in a dict, Redis, or SQLite, and send the last N messages as context.