head to head · open source
LocalAI vs FastDeploy
LocalAI has 49,179 GitHub stars, 4,458 forks, 201 open issues and last shipped today. FastDeploy has 3,716 stars, 756 forks, 649 open issues and last shipped 25 days ago. LocalAI leads on adoption by 1,223% (49,179 vs 3,716 stars). LocalAI is written in Go under MIT; FastDeploy is written in Python under Apache-2.0. LocalAI has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, FastDeploy 20%. LocalAI 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
| LocalAI | FastDeploy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 49K | ★ 3.7K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-08-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.5K | ⑂ 756 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick LocalAI if
- You weight community size — 49K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- 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 LocalAI
LocalAI is an open source AI runtime that enables running large language models (LLMs), vision, audio, image, and video models locally or on premises. It operates as a modular engine where each model type is backed by a dedicated, lightweight backend—such as llama.cpp, whisper.cpp, or stable diffusion—pulled only when needed. This composable architecture avoids bundling unnecessary dependencies, keeping the core minimal while supporting diverse modalities and hardware configurations.
read the full LocalAI 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 →
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 LocalAI or FastDeploy more popular?
LocalAI has 49,179 GitHub stars and FastDeploy has 3,716. LocalAI has the larger community by that measure.
Are LocalAI and FastDeploy free?
Both are open source. LocalAI is licensed under MIT and FastDeploy under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between LocalAI and FastDeploy?
LocalAI is written in Go 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, LocalAI or FastDeploy?
Choose LocalAI if you want the larger community (49,179 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose FastDeploy if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.