Recent evidence suggests homophily in friendships in captive chimpanzees, capuchin monkeys and wild baboons, meaning that individuals with similar phenotypes have stronger friendships. Personality has been suggested as a phenotypic trait influencing friendships. In chimpanzees individuals with similar sociability scores were found to sit more in contact with each other, and this effect was stronger for maternal kin. Our aim is to study potential influences of personality similarity on friendship in captive bonobos, who are closely related to chimpanzees, but differ in some socio-ecological contexts. We use behavioural observations on 41 adult and adolescent bonobos (15 males, 26 females; aged between 6 and 63 years) housed in 5 European zoos (Frankfurt; Planckendael; Stuttgart; Twycross; Wuppertal). Mean focal time per individual was 17 h. We used Factor Analysis and Parallel Analysis on individual behavioural scores to construct a multidimensional personality profile for each individual, resulting in three personality factors that were labelled “sociability”, “positive affect” and “anxiety”. We then used Principal Component analyses and Parallel Analysis on dyadic behavioural scores to construct a model for relationship quality and in line with our previous research could discriminate between two components of relationship quality, named “relationship value” and “relationship compatibility”. Using ‘contact sitting’ as a conventional measure of friendship, we found that individuals of similar sociability scores spend more time sitting together, in line with the published results for chimpanzees. Using the composite measure of relationship quality, we found that individuals of similar sociability scores had higher relationship value, but not relationship compatibility. When interactions with maternal kinship were included in the model, we found that relationship value was higher only in related dyads with more similar sociability, positive affect and anxiety, but not for unrelated individuals. However, the number of related dyads in our sample was small (N=11) and this category included kinship relations that may be functionally very different, such as 1 mother-daughter pair, 7 mother-son pairs and 3 pairs of maternal brothers. Literature has shown that mother son relationships have a crucial role in bonobo sociality for bonobos while friendship is less important for maternal brother. Including these different relations in one category may have driven the kinship effects we found in our study. In general we find a relationship between similar personality traits and friendship in zoo-housed bonobos. These results help us better understand the nature of friendships in captive bonobo groups, contributing to the evolution of social relationships in primates.