head to head · open source
vllm vs examples
vllm has 92,055 GitHub stars, 22,349 forks, 7,953 open issues and last shipped today. examples has 3,043 stars, 1,073 forks, 64 open issues and last shipped 14 days ago. vllm leads on adoption by 2,925% (92,055 vs 3,043 stars). vllm is written in Python under Apache-2.0; examples is written in Jupyter Notebook under MIT. vllm has attracted 24% as many forks as stars, examples 35%. vllm 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
| vllm | examples | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 92K | ★ 3.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Jupyter Notebook |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 22K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| 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 examples if
- You want the examples feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Jupyter Notebook
- You evaluated both and examples 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 examples
Pinecone Examples is an MIT licensed collection of Jupyter Notebooks and sample applications that lets developers get hands on with Pinecone vector databases and common AI patterns, tools, and algorithms.
read the full examples overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vllm or examples more popular?
vllm has 92,055 GitHub stars and examples has 3,043. vllm has the larger community by that measure.
Are vllm and examples free?
Both are open source. vllm is licensed under Apache-2.0 and examples under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vllm and examples?
vllm is written in Python and examples in Jupyter Notebook. 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 examples?
Choose vllm if you want the larger community (92,055 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose examples if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.