head to head · open source
Ollama vs lightly-studio
Ollama has 181,161 GitHub stars, 17,917 forks, 3,957 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lightly-studio has 889 stars, 34 forks, 53 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ollama leads on adoption by 20,278% (181,161 vs 889 stars). Ollama is written in Go under MIT; lightly-studio is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Ollama has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, lightly-studio 4%. lightly-studio 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 | lightly-studio | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 181K | ★ 889 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 18K | ⑂ 34 |
| 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 lightly-studio if
- You want the lightly-studio 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 lightly-studio 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 lightly-studio
LightlyStudio is an Apache 2.0 Python application that opens in a browser and lets computer vision and MLOps practitioners curate, annotate, and manage image and video datasets entirely on their own machine, with no account and no data leaving the local system.
read the full lightly-studio overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ollama or lightly-studio more popular?
Ollama has 181,161 GitHub stars and lightly-studio has 889. Ollama has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ollama and lightly-studio free?
Both are open source. Ollama is licensed under MIT and lightly-studio under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ollama and lightly-studio?
Ollama is written in Go and lightly-studio 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, Ollama or lightly-studio?
Choose Ollama if you want the larger community (181,161 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose lightly-studio if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.