head to head · open source
Ollama vs txtai
Ollama has 185,702 GitHub stars, 18,873 forks, 3,957 open issues and last shipped yesterday. txtai has 13,062 stars, 960 forks, 9 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Ollama leads on adoption by 1,322% (185,702 vs 13,062 stars). Ollama is written in Go under MIT; txtai is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Ollama has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, txtai 7%. 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 | txtai | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 186K | ★ 13K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 19K | ⑂ 960 |
| 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 txtai if
- You want the txtai 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 txtai 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 txtai
All in one AI framework txtai is an all in one AI framework for semantic search, LLM orchestration and language model workflows. The key component of txtai is an embeddings database, which is a union of vector indexes (sparse and dense), graph networks and relational databases. This foundation enables vector search and/or serves as a powerful knowledge source for large language model (LLM) applications. Build autonomous agents, retrieval augmented generation (RAG) processes, multi model workflows and more. Summary of txtai features: 🔎 Vector search with SQL, object storage, topic modeling, graph analysis and…
read the full txtai overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ollama or txtai more popular?
Ollama has 185,702 GitHub stars and txtai has 13,062. Ollama has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ollama and txtai free?
Both are open source. Ollama is licensed under MIT and txtai under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ollama and txtai?
Ollama is written in Go and txtai 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 txtai?
Choose Ollama if you want the larger community (185,702 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose txtai if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.