head to head · open source
Ollama vs ServerlessLLM
Ollama has 185,702 GitHub stars, 18,873 forks, 3,957 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ServerlessLLM has 718 stars, 80 forks, 45 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Ollama leads on adoption by 25,764% (185,702 vs 718 stars). Ollama is written in Go under MIT; ServerlessLLM is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Ollama has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, ServerlessLLM 11%. 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.
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Side by side
| Ollama | ServerlessLLM | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 186K | ★ 718 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-09-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 19K | ⑂ 80 |
| 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 ServerlessLLM if
- You want the ServerlessLLM 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 ServerlessLLM 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 ServerlessLLM
ServerlessLLM Load models 10x faster. Serve 10 models with 1 GPU. Docs • Quick Start • OSDI'24 Paper ⚡ Performance ServerlessLLM loads models 6 10x faster than SafeTensors , enabling true serverless deployment where multiple models efficiently share GPU resources. Model Scenario SafeTensors ServerlessLLM Speedup Qwen/Qwen3 32B Random 20.6s 3.2s 6.40x Cached 12.5s 1.3s 9.95x DeepSeek R1 Distill Qwen 32B Random 19.1s 3.2s 5.93x Cached 10.2s 1.2s 8.58x Llama 3.1 8B Instruct Random 4.4s 0.7s 6.54x Results obtained on NVIDIA H100 GPUs with NVMe SSD. "Random" simulates serverless multi model serving; "Cached" shows…
read the full ServerlessLLM overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ollama or ServerlessLLM more popular?
Ollama has 185,702 GitHub stars and ServerlessLLM has 718. Ollama has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ollama and ServerlessLLM free?
Both are open source. Ollama is licensed under MIT and ServerlessLLM under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ollama and ServerlessLLM?
Ollama is written in Go and ServerlessLLM 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 ServerlessLLM?
Choose Ollama if you want the larger community (185,702 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose ServerlessLLM if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.