head to head · open source
Ollama vs Jan
Ollama has 181,184 GitHub stars, 17,921 forks, 3,957 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Jan has 44,516 stars, 3,032 forks, 521 open issues and last shipped today. Ollama leads on adoption by 307% (181,184 vs 44,516 stars). Ollama is written in Go under MIT; Jan is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence. Ollama has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Jan 7%. Jan 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.
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Side by side
| Ollama | Jan | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 181K | ★ 45K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 18K | ⑂ 3.0K |
| 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 Jan if
- You want the Jan feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Jan 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 Jan
Jan is an open source desktop application that serves as a ChatGPT replacement, enabling users to run large language models (LLMs) locally on their machines or connect to cloud based providers like OpenAI and Anthropic. It is built with Tauri, TypeScript, and integrates llama.cpp for efficient local inference, targeting privacy conscious users who want full control over their AI workflows without sending data to third parties.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ollama or Jan more popular?
Ollama has 181,184 GitHub stars and Jan has 44,516. Ollama has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ollama and Jan free?
Both are open source. Ollama is licensed under MIT, and Jan has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Ollama and Jan?
Ollama is written in Go and Jan in TypeScript. 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 Jan?
Choose Ollama if you want the larger community (181,184 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Jan if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.