head to head · open source
Ollama vs envd
Ollama has 181,161 GitHub stars, 17,917 forks, 3,957 open issues and last shipped yesterday. envd has 2,230 stars, 168 forks, 139 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Ollama leads on adoption by 8,024% (181,161 vs 2,230 stars). Ollama is written in Go under MIT; envd is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Ollama has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, envd 8%. Ollama 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 | envd | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 181K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-07-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 18K | ⑂ 168 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ollama if
- You weight community size — 181K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick envd if
- You want the envd feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and envd fits your workflow better
About Ollama
Ollama is a Go based, MIT licensed runtime that downloads and runs open source large language models such as DeepSeek, Qwen, Gemma, GLM, MiniMax and gpt oss locally on a user's own machine, and it is aimed at developers and teams that want model inference without routing prompts through a hosted API.
read the full Ollama overview →
About envd
envd is a command line tool for creating container based development environments for AI and machine learning work. It lives in the AI & Machine Learning / Machine Learning Infrastructure ecosystem and is written in Go under the Apache 2.0 license. The project is presented as a reproducible development environment for humans and agents, with topics such as buildkit, docker, llmops, mlops, model serving, code agent, and codex.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ollama or envd more popular?
Ollama has 181,161 GitHub stars and envd has 2,230. Ollama has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ollama and envd free?
Both are open source. Ollama is licensed under MIT and envd under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ollama and envd?
Ollama is written in Go and envd in Go. 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 envd?
Choose Ollama if you want the larger community (181,161 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose envd if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.