head to head · open source
llama_index vs chitu
llama_index has 52,779 GitHub stars, 8,500 forks, 770 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. chitu has 2,997 stars, 249 forks, 57 open issues and last shipped yesterday. llama_index leads on adoption by 1,661% (52,779 vs 2,997 stars). llama_index is written in Python under MIT; chitu is written in Python under Apache-2.0. llama_index has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, chitu 8%. chitu 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| llama_index | chitu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 53K | ★ 3.0K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-26 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.5K | ⑂ 249 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick llama_index if
- You weight community size — 53K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick chitu if
- You want the chitu 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 chitu fits your workflow better
About llama_index
🗂️ LlamaIndex (OSS Framework) 🦙 [!NOTE] The current focus of LlamaIndex is to build the best AI powered engine for document parsing and extraction. LlamaParse is our enterprise platform for agentic OCR, parsing, extraction, indexing and more. LiteParse represents our efforts to build the best free, fast, cheap text parser in the market. ParseBench and ExtractBench represent our commitment towards open benchmarking for parsing and extraction. The company itself has undergone an evolution since when this OSS framework first launched 3 years ago in 2023. Since the early days, the framework has consisted of a…
read the full llama_index overview →
About chitu
Chitu「赤兔」 中文 English Chitu「赤兔」是一个专注于效率、灵活性和可用性的高性能大模型推理框架。 里程碑 [2026/07/02] 发布 v0.6.0，新增 chitu.run 可执行文件：单文件即可启动多结点、多实例、PD 分离等复杂任务。 [2026/02/06] 发布 v0.5.1，适配摩尔线程 GPU。 [2025/12/12] 发布 v0.5.0，重点提升集群部署场景的性能。 [2025/08/01] 发布 v0.4.0，大幅提升了一体机推理部署场景的性能和稳定性，适配昇腾、英伟达、沐曦、海光，支持 DeepSeek、Qwen、GLM、Kimi 等模型。 [2025/07/28] 发布 v0.3.9，首发支持华为昇腾 910B 推理部署智谱 GLM 4.5 MoE 模型。 [2025/06/12] 发布 v0.3.5，提供昇腾 910B 完整原生支持，提供 Qwen3 系列模型高性能推理方案。 [2025/04/29] 发布 v0.3.0，新增 FP4 在线转 FP8、BF16 的高效算子实现，支持 DeepSeek R1 671B 的 FP4 量化版。 [2025/04/18] 发布 v0.2.2，新增 CPU+GPU 异构混合推理支持，实现单卡推理 DeepSeek R1 671B。 [2025/03/14] 发布 v0.1.0，支持 DeepSeek R1 671B，提供 FP8…
read the full chitu overview →
More in AI & Machine Learning
Related comparisons
More Machine Learning Infrastructure projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Machine Learning Infrastructure field.
Frequently asked questions
Is llama_index or chitu more popular?
llama_index has 52,779 GitHub stars and chitu has 2,997. llama_index has the larger community by that measure.
Are llama_index and chitu free?
Both are open source. llama_index is licensed under MIT and chitu under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between llama_index and chitu?
llama_index is written in Python and chitu 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_index or chitu?
Choose llama_index if you want the larger community (52,779 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose chitu if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.