head to head · open source
RWKV-Runner vs optillm
RWKV-Runner has 6,482 GitHub stars, 601 forks, 178 open issues and last shipped 16 days ago. optillm has 4,296 stars, 388 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. RWKV-Runner leads on adoption by 51% (6,482 vs 4,296 stars). RWKV-Runner is written in TypeScript under MIT; optillm is written in Python under Apache-2.0. RWKV-Runner has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, optillm 9%. optillm 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
| RWKV-Runner | optillm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.5K | ★ 4.3K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-04 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 601 | ⑂ 388 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick RWKV-Runner if
- You weight community size — 6.5K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick optillm if
- You want the optillm 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 optillm fits your workflow better
About RWKV-Runner
RWKV Runner is a management and startup tool for RWKV, an open source large language model that is available for commercial use. It ships as a lightweight executable of only a few megabytes and automates the work of getting a model running, so that the user does not have to assemble the runtime, dependencies, and serving stack by hand. The project is written in TypeScript and built with Wails, and it is distributed under the MIT license from the josStorer repository. It lives in the RWKV ecosystem and in the broader local inference tooling space, with a companion site at rwkv.com.
read the full RWKV-Runner overview →
About optillm
OptiLLM is a Python project that provides an optimizing inference proxy for large language models. It exposes an OpenAI API compatible endpoint and sits between an application and model providers, allowing callers to request reasoning oriented optimizations without changing model weights or adding training. The project lives in the developer tools and API development ecosystem, and its topics connect it to agents, agentic workflows, API gateways, chain of thought prompting, and generative AI inference.
read the full optillm overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is RWKV-Runner or optillm more popular?
RWKV-Runner has 6,482 GitHub stars and optillm has 4,296. RWKV-Runner has the larger community by that measure.
Are RWKV-Runner and optillm free?
Both are open source. RWKV-Runner is licensed under MIT and optillm under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between RWKV-Runner and optillm?
RWKV-Runner is written in TypeScript and optillm 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, RWKV-Runner or optillm?
Choose RWKV-Runner if you want the larger community (6,482 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose optillm if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.