head to head · open source

llama.cpp vs lancedb

llama.cpp has 133,181 GitHub stars, 25,063 forks, 2,464 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lancedb has 11,832 stars, 1,150 forks, 627 open issues and last shipped yesterday. llama.cpp leads on adoption by 1,026% (133,181 vs 11,832 stars). llama.cpp is written in C++ under MIT; lancedb is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. llama.cpp has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, lancedb 10%. lancedb 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.

llama.cpp ★ 133K lancedb ★ 12K category AI & Machine Learning

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Side by side

	llama.cpp	lancedb
GitHub stars	★ 133K	★ 12K
License	MIT	Apache-2.0
Written in	C++	Rust
Last push	2026-11-02	2026-11-02
Forks	⑂ 25K	⑂ 1.1K
Self-hosting	Yes	Yes
Data ownership	Your server	Your server

pick llama.cpp if

You weight community size — 133K stars and counting
You want the MIT license terms
Your stack matches C++
You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance

full llama.cpp profile →

pick lancedb if

You want the lancedb feature set and don't need the biggest community
You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
Your stack matches Rust
You evaluated both and lancedb fits your workflow better

full lancedb profile →

About llama.cpp

llama.cpp LLM inference in C/C++ ggml / ops / maintainer PRs%20sort%3Aupdated desc) / dev stats / lib llama API / llama server REST API Quick start A few options to get llama.cpp installed on your machine: Visit and follow the instructions Run with Docker see our Docker documentation Download pre built binaries from the releases page Build from source by cloning this repository check out our build guide Once installed: VLM session with llama cli Built in web UI against llama serve Description The main goal of llama.cpp is to enable LLM (and VLM) inference with minimal setup and state of the art performance on a…

read the full llama.cpp overview →

About lancedb

The Multimodal AI Lakehouse How to Install ✦ Detailed Documentation ✦ Tutorials and Recipes ✦ Contributors The ultimate multimodal data platform for AI/ML applications. LanceDB is designed for fast, scalable, and production ready vector search. It is built on top of the Lance columnar format. You can store, index, and search over petabytes of multimodal data and vectors with ease. LanceDB is a central location where developers can build, train and analyze their AI workloads. Demo: Multimodal Search by Keyword, Vector or with SQL Star LanceDB to get updates! ⭐ Click here ⭐ to see how fast we're growing! Key…

read the full lancedb overview →

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Frequently asked questions

Is llama.cpp or lancedb more popular?

llama.cpp has 133,181 GitHub stars and lancedb has 11,832. llama.cpp has the larger community by that measure.

Are llama.cpp and lancedb free?

Both are open source. llama.cpp is licensed under MIT and lancedb under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.

What is the difference between llama.cpp and lancedb?

llama.cpp is written in C++ and lancedb in Rust. 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 lancedb?

Choose llama.cpp if you want the larger community (133,181 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose lancedb if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.