head to head · open source
vllm vs chitu
vllm has 96,158 GitHub stars, 24,317 forks, 7,953 open issues and last shipped yesterday. chitu has 2,997 stars, 249 forks, 57 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vllm leads on adoption by 3,108% (96,158 vs 2,997 stars). vllm is written in Python under Apache-2.0; chitu is written in Python under Apache-2.0. vllm has attracted 25% as many forks as stars, chitu 8%. vllm was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (deepseek, llm, llm-serving), 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 | chitu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 96K | ★ 3.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 24K | ⑂ 249 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick vllm if
- You weight community size — 96K 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 chitu if
- You want the chitu 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 chitu fits your workflow better
About vllm
Easy, fast, and cheap LLM serving for everyone 🔥 We have built a vLLM website to help you get started with vLLM. Please visit vllm.ai to learn more. For events, please visit vllm.ai/events to join us. About vLLM is a fast and easy to use library for LLM inference and serving. Originally developed in the Sky Computing Lab at UC Berkeley, vLLM has grown into one of the most active open source AI projects built and maintained by a diverse community of many dozens of academic institutions and companies from over 2000 contributors. vLLM is fast with: State of the art serving throughput Efficient management of…
About chitu
Chitu「赤兔」 中文 English Chitu「赤兔」是一个专注于效率、灵活性和可用性的高性能大模型推理框架。 里程碑 [2026/07/02] 发布 v0.6.0，新增 chitu.run 可执行文件：单文件即可启动多结点、多实例、PD 分离等复杂任务。 [2026/02/06] 发布 v0.5.1，适配摩尔线程 GPU。 [2025/12/12] 发布 v0.5.0，重点提升集群部署场景的性能。 [2025/08/01] 发布 v0.4.0，大幅提升了一体机推理部署场景的性能和稳定性，适配昇腾、英伟达、沐曦、海光，支持 DeepSeek、Qwen、GLM、Kimi 等模型。 [2025/07/28] 发布 v0.3.9，首发支持华为昇腾 910B 推理部署智谱 GLM 4.5 MoE 模型。 [2025/06/12] 发布 v0.3.5，提供昇腾 910B 完整原生支持，提供 Qwen3 系列模型高性能推理方案。 [2025/04/29] 发布 v0.3.0，新增 FP4 在线转 FP8、BF16 的高效算子实现，支持 DeepSeek R1 671B 的 FP4 量化版。 [2025/04/18] 发布 v0.2.2，新增 CPU+GPU 异构混合推理支持，实现单卡推理 DeepSeek R1 671B。 [2025/03/14] 发布 v0.1.0，支持 DeepSeek R1 671B，提供 FP8…
read the full chitu overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vllm or chitu more popular?
vllm has 96,158 GitHub stars and chitu has 2,997. vllm has the larger community by that measure.
Are vllm and chitu free?
Both are open source. vllm is licensed under Apache-2.0 and chitu under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vllm and chitu?
vllm is written in Python and chitu 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, vllm or chitu?
Choose vllm if you want the larger community (96,158 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose chitu if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.