head to head · open source
Ollama vs mcp-memory-service
Ollama has 181,184 GitHub stars, 17,921 forks, 3,957 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mcp-memory-service has 1,951 stars, 319 forks, 30 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ollama leads on adoption by 9,187% (181,184 vs 1,951 stars). Ollama is written in Go under MIT; mcp-memory-service is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Ollama has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, mcp-memory-service 16%. 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Ollama | mcp-memory-service | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 181K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 18K | ⑂ 319 |
| 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 mcp-memory-service if
- You want the mcp-memory-service 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 mcp-memory-service 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 mcp-memory-service
This repository has moved to GitHub Active development, issues, pull requests, CI and releases are at as of 5 September 2026. This copy stays here, readable and unchanged, so that existing links, issue numbers and pull request references keep resolving. It receives no further pushes and its CI no longer runs. Please do not open issues or pull requests here, they will not be seen. The wiki moved too: mcp memory service Persistent Shared Memory for AI Agent Pipelines Open source memory backend for AI agents — REST API, MCP, OAuth, CLI, dashboard . One self hosted service, every transport. Agents store decisions, sh…
read the full mcp-memory-service 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 Ollama or mcp-memory-service more popular?
Ollama has 181,184 GitHub stars and mcp-memory-service has 1,951. Ollama has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ollama and mcp-memory-service free?
Both are open source. Ollama is licensed under MIT and mcp-memory-service under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ollama and mcp-memory-service?
Ollama is written in Go and mcp-memory-service 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 mcp-memory-service?
Choose Ollama if you want the larger community (181,184 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose mcp-memory-service if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.