head to head · open source
Jan vs oterm
Jan has 44,680 GitHub stars, 3,059 forks, 521 open issues and last shipped today. oterm has 2,442 stars, 138 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Jan leads on adoption by 1,730% (44,680 vs 2,442 stars). Jan is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; oterm is written in Python under MIT. Jan has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, oterm 6%. Jan was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (llm), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Jan | oterm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-28 | 2026-09-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 138 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Jan if
- You weight community size — 45K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick oterm if
- You want the oterm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and oterm fits your workflow better
About Jan
Jan is an open source desktop application that serves as a ChatGPT replacement, enabling users to run large language models (LLMs) locally on their machines or connect to cloud based providers like OpenAI and Anthropic. It is built with Tauri, TypeScript, and integrates llama.cpp for efficient local inference, targeting privacy conscious users who want full control over their AI workflows without sending data to third parties.
About oterm
oterm is the terminal client for LLMs: a Python TUI that connects one terminal interface to Ollama, OpenAI, Anthropic, and any pydantic ai supported provider, aimed at developers and terminal centric teams who would rather chat with models from the command line than from a browser.
read the full oterm overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Jan or oterm more popular?
Jan has 44,680 GitHub stars and oterm has 2,442. Jan has the larger community by that measure.
Are Jan and oterm free?
Both are open source. Jan has no licence declared in this registry, and oterm is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Jan and oterm?
Jan is written in Rust and oterm in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Jan or oterm?
Choose Jan if you want the larger community (44,680 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose oterm if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.