head to head · open source
llama.cpp vs FastDeploy
llama.cpp has 128,581 GitHub stars, 23,334 forks, 2,464 open issues and last shipped yesterday. FastDeploy has 3,716 stars, 756 forks, 649 open issues and last shipped 23 days ago. llama.cpp leads on adoption by 3,360% (128,581 vs 3,716 stars). llama.cpp is written in C++ under MIT; FastDeploy is written in Python under Apache-2.0. llama.cpp has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, FastDeploy 20%. llama.cpp was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| llama.cpp | FastDeploy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 129K | ★ 3.7K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 23K | ⑂ 756 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick llama.cpp if
- You weight community size — 129K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick FastDeploy if
- You want the FastDeploy feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and FastDeploy fits your workflow better
About llama.cpp
llama.cpp is a C/C++ library and set of command line tools for running large language models (LLMs) and vision language models (VLMs) locally. It enables inference without external dependencies, targeting diverse hardware including Apple Silicon, x86 CPUs, NVIDIA GPUs (via CUDA), AMD GPUs (via HIP), and other accelerators. The project lives in the ggml ecosystem, leveraging the ggml tensor computation library for low level operations and quantized model execution.
read the full llama.cpp overview →
About FastDeploy
FastDeploy is a Python inference and deployment toolkit for large language models and vision language models in the PaddlePaddle ecosystem. It serves models such as ERNIE, ERNIE 4.5, ERNIE 4.5 VL, DeepSeek V3, Qwen3 MoE, Qwen3 VL, and PaddleOCR VL 0.9B on accelerators.
read the full FastDeploy overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is llama.cpp or FastDeploy more popular?
llama.cpp has 128,581 GitHub stars and FastDeploy has 3,716. llama.cpp has the larger community by that measure.
Are llama.cpp and FastDeploy free?
Both are open source. llama.cpp is licensed under MIT and FastDeploy under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between llama.cpp and FastDeploy?
llama.cpp is written in C++ and FastDeploy 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, llama.cpp or FastDeploy?
Choose llama.cpp if you want the larger community (128,581 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose FastDeploy if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.