head to head · open source
Ollama vs OpenLIT
Ollama has 185,702 GitHub stars, 18,873 forks, 3,957 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenLIT has 2,899 stars, 455 forks, 60 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ollama leads on adoption by 6,306% (185,702 vs 2,899 stars). Ollama is written in Go under MIT; OpenLIT is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Ollama has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, OpenLIT 16%. OpenLIT 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 | OpenLIT | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 186K | ★ 2.9K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 19K | ⑂ 455 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ollama if
- You weight community size — 186K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick OpenLIT if
- You want the OpenLIT feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and OpenLIT fits your workflow better
About Ollama
Ollama Start building with open models. Download macOS or download manually Windows or download manually Linux Manual install instructions Docker The official Ollama Docker image ollama/ollama is available on Docker Hub. Libraries ollama python ollama js Community Discord 𝕏 (Twitter) Reddit Get started You'll be prompted to run a model or connect Ollama to your existing agents or applications such as Claude Code , OpenClaw , OpenCode , Codex , Copilot , and more. Coding To launch a specific integration: Supported integrations include Claude Code, Codex, Copilot CLI, DeepSeek Harness, Droid, and OpenCode. AI…
read the full Ollama overview →
About OpenLIT
Open source observability & evaluation for AI agents Trace, evaluate, debug, and optimize AI applications and coding agents with OpenTelemetry. ⭐ Star 🚀 Quickstart 📚 Docs Documentation · Quickstart · Examples · Join Slack See what your AI agents are actually doing AI applications are no longer just LLM calls. A production agent can involve: OpenLIT gives you visibility across the entire workflow. Trace every LLM call, tool invocation, prompt, agent step, token, cost, error, and evaluation — using OpenTelemetry. ⚡ Get started in 5 minutes 1. Start OpenLIT Open: 2. Install the SDK Python: TypeScript: 3…
read the full OpenLIT overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ollama or OpenLIT more popular?
Ollama has 185,702 GitHub stars and OpenLIT has 2,899. Ollama has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ollama and OpenLIT free?
Both are open source. Ollama is licensed under MIT and OpenLIT under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ollama and OpenLIT ?
Ollama is written in Go and OpenLIT 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 OpenLIT ?
Choose Ollama if you want the larger community (185,702 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose OpenLIT if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.