head to head · open source
LocalAI vs neuron-ai
LocalAI has 49,179 GitHub stars, 4,458 forks, 201 open issues and last shipped today. neuron-ai has 2,100 stars, 247 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped yesterday. LocalAI leads on adoption by 2,242% (49,179 vs 2,100 stars). LocalAI is written in Go under MIT; neuron-ai is written in PHP under MIT. LocalAI has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, neuron-ai 12%. LocalAI was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (agents, ai, 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.
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Side by side
| LocalAI | neuron-ai | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 49K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.5K | ⑂ 247 |
| 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 neuron-ai if
- You want the neuron-ai feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and neuron-ai 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 neuron-ai
Neuron is an MIT licensed PHP framework for creating and orchestrating AI agents inside PHP applications, built for PHP developers and teams that want agents to be the architecture of an application rather than a feature bolted onto it.
read the full neuron-ai overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is LocalAI or neuron-ai more popular?
LocalAI has 49,179 GitHub stars and neuron-ai has 2,100. LocalAI has the larger community by that measure.
Are LocalAI and neuron-ai free?
Both are open source. LocalAI is licensed under MIT and neuron-ai under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between LocalAI and neuron-ai?
LocalAI is written in Go and neuron-ai in PHP. 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 neuron-ai?
Choose LocalAI if you want the larger community (49,179 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose neuron-ai if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.