head to head · open source
vllm vs Beam
vllm has 92,028 GitHub stars, 22,335 forks, 7,953 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Beam has 1,780 stars, 165 forks, 21 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. vllm leads on adoption by 5,070% (92,028 vs 1,780 stars). vllm is written in Python under Apache-2.0; Beam is written in Go under AGPL-3.0. vllm has attracted 24% as many forks as stars, Beam 9%. vllm was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (cuda, 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
| vllm | Beam | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 92K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 22K | ⑂ 165 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick vllm if
- You weight community size — 92K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Beam if
- You want the Beam feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Beam fits your workflow better
About vllm
vLLM is a high throughput, memory efficient Python library for LLM inference and serving, built for ML engineers and platform teams who need to run open weight models on their own hardware at production scale.
About Beam
Beam is an open source runtime for serverless AI workloads, released under AGPL 3.0 and implemented in Go. It lives in the Python AI infrastructure ecosystem, where it gives developers a Pythonic interface for deploying and scaling GPU inference, sandboxes, and background jobs without managing infrastructure. The open source engine is Beta9, which powers the managed Beam cloud platform.
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Frequently asked questions
Is vllm or Beam more popular?
vllm has 92,028 GitHub stars and Beam has 1,780. vllm has the larger community by that measure.
Are vllm and Beam free?
Both are open source. vllm is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Beam under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vllm and Beam?
vllm is written in Python and Beam in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, vllm or Beam?
Choose vllm if you want the larger community (92,028 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Beam if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.