head to head · open source
llama.cpp vs infinity
llama.cpp has 128,581 GitHub stars, 23,334 forks, 2,464 open issues and last shipped yesterday. infinity has 4,708 stars, 445 forks, 126 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. llama.cpp leads on adoption by 2,631% (128,581 vs 4,708 stars). llama.cpp is written in C++ under MIT; infinity is written in C++ under Apache-2.0. llama.cpp has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, infinity 9%. 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 | infinity | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 129K | ★ 4.7K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 23K | ⑂ 445 |
| 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 infinity if
- You want the infinity feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and infinity 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 infinity
Infinity is an Apache 2.0, C++ database in the AI and machine learning infrastructure ecosystem. It is an AI native database for large language model applications, including search, recommendation, question answering, conversational AI, copilot, content generation, and retrieval augmented generation. The project targets matching and ranking rich data types inside one system, rather than combining separate vector, text, and reranking components.
read the full infinity overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is llama.cpp or infinity more popular?
llama.cpp has 128,581 GitHub stars and infinity has 4,708. llama.cpp has the larger community by that measure.
Are llama.cpp and infinity free?
Both are open source. llama.cpp is licensed under MIT and infinity under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between llama.cpp and infinity?
llama.cpp is written in C++ and infinity in C++. 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 infinity?
Choose llama.cpp if you want the larger community (128,581 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose infinity if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.