head to head · open source
Ollama vs selfhost-ai
Ollama has 181,184 GitHub stars, 17,921 forks, 3,957 open issues and last shipped yesterday. selfhost-ai has 933 stars, 235 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. Ollama leads on adoption by 19,320% (181,184 vs 933 stars). Ollama is written in Go under MIT; selfhost-ai is written in Shell under Apache-2.0. Ollama has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, selfhost-ai 25%. Ollama 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 | selfhost-ai | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 181K | ★ 933 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 18K | ⑂ 235 |
| 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 selfhost-ai if
- You want the selfhost-ai feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and selfhost-ai 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 selfhost-ai
Selfhost AI — Self Hosted AI Automation Platform Deploy 30+ AI and automation tools with a single command. This open source Docker Compose template creates a complete self hosted environment with n8n (workflow automation), Flowise (AI agents), Ollama (local LLMs), vector databases (Qdrant, Weaviate), RAG engines, Supabase, monitoring stack, and more — all pre configured behind Caddy reverse proxy with automatic HTTPS. Plus, optionally import 300+ community workflows during setup! Table of Contents Key Features Why This Setup? What's Included Installation Quick Start and Usage Upgrading Quick Commands Troubleshoot…
read the full selfhost-ai overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ollama or selfhost-ai more popular?
Ollama has 181,184 GitHub stars and selfhost-ai has 933. Ollama has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ollama and selfhost-ai free?
Both are open source. Ollama is licensed under MIT and selfhost-ai under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ollama and selfhost-ai?
Ollama is written in Go and selfhost-ai in Shell. 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 selfhost-ai?
Choose Ollama if you want the larger community (181,184 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose selfhost-ai if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.