head to head · open source
Ollama vs OpenLLM
Ollama has 185,702 GitHub stars, 18,873 forks, 3,957 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenLLM has 12,578 stars, 848 forks, 20 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Ollama leads on adoption by 1,376% (185,702 vs 12,578 stars). Ollama is written in Go under MIT; OpenLLM is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Ollama has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, OpenLLM 7%. Ollama was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (llama, 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 | OpenLLM | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 186K | ★ 13K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 19K | ⑂ 848 |
| 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 OpenLLM if
- You want the OpenLLM 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 OpenLLM 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 OpenLLM
🦾 OpenLLM: Self Hosting LLMs Made Easy OpenLLM allows developers to run any open source LLMs (Llama 3.3, Qwen2.5, Phi3 and more) or custom models as OpenAI compatible APIs with a single command. It features a built in chat UI, state of the art inference backends, and a simplified workflow for creating enterprise grade cloud deployment with Docker, Kubernetes, and BentoCloud. Understand the design philosophy of OpenLLM. Get Started Run the following commands to install OpenLLM and explore it interactively. Supported models OpenLLM supports a wide range of state of the art open source LLMs. You can also add a…
read the full OpenLLM overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ollama or OpenLLM more popular?
Ollama has 185,702 GitHub stars and OpenLLM has 12,578. Ollama has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ollama and OpenLLM free?
Both are open source. Ollama is licensed under MIT and OpenLLM under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ollama and OpenLLM?
Ollama is written in Go and OpenLLM 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 OpenLLM?
Choose Ollama if you want the larger community (185,702 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose OpenLLM if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.