head to head · open source
vllm vs Laminar
vllm has 92,028 GitHub stars, 22,335 forks, 7,953 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Laminar has 3,265 stars, 239 forks, 116 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vllm leads on adoption by 2,719% (92,028 vs 3,265 stars). vllm is written in Python under Apache-2.0; Laminar is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. vllm has attracted 24% as many forks as stars, Laminar 7%. vllm was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | Laminar | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 92K | ★ 3.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 22K | ⑂ 239 |
| 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 Laminar if
- You want the Laminar feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Laminar 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 Laminar
Laminar is an open source observability platform purpose built for AI agents, distributed under the Apache 2.0 license and written primarily in TypeScript. It was built by the team behind Y Combinator's S24 batch and lives in the AI and machine learning infrastructure ecosystem, with a topic list spanning agent observability, LLM evaluation, LLMOps and AIOps. The project ships as a tracing and evaluation stack rather than a general purpose APM tool, and its homepage at laminar.sh hosts both documentation and a managed offering.
read the full Laminar overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vllm or Laminar more popular?
vllm has 92,028 GitHub stars and Laminar has 3,265. vllm has the larger community by that measure.
Are vllm and Laminar free?
Both are open source. vllm is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Laminar under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vllm and Laminar?
vllm is written in Python and Laminar in TypeScript. 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 Laminar?
Choose vllm if you want the larger community (92,028 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Laminar if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.