head to head · open source
Ollama vs llama.cpp
Ollama has 185,702 GitHub stars, 18,873 forks, 3,957 open issues and last shipped yesterday. llama.cpp has 133,181 stars, 25,063 forks, 2,464 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ollama leads on adoption by 39% (185,702 vs 133,181 stars). Ollama is written in Go under MIT; llama.cpp is written in C++ under MIT. Ollama has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, llama.cpp 19%. 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
| Ollama | llama.cpp | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 186K | ★ 133K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 19K | ⑂ 25K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ollama if
- You weight community size — 186K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick llama.cpp if
- You want the llama.cpp feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and llama.cpp fits your workflow better
About Ollama
Ollama Start building with open models. Download macOS or download manually Windows or download manually Linux Manual install instructions Docker The official Ollama Docker image ollama/ollama is available on Docker Hub. Libraries ollama python ollama js Community Discord 𝕏 (Twitter) Reddit Get started You'll be prompted to run a model or connect Ollama to your existing agents or applications such as Claude Code , OpenClaw , OpenCode , Codex , Copilot , and more. Coding To launch a specific integration: Supported integrations include Claude Code, Codex, Copilot CLI, DeepSeek Harness, Droid, and OpenCode. AI…
read the full Ollama overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ollama or llama.cpp more popular?
Ollama has 185,702 GitHub stars and llama.cpp has 133,181. Ollama has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ollama and llama.cpp free?
Both are open source. Ollama is licensed under MIT and llama.cpp under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ollama and llama.cpp?
Ollama is written in Go and llama.cpp 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, Ollama or llama.cpp?
Choose Ollama if you want the larger community (185,702 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose llama.cpp if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.