head to head · open source
vllm vs lancedb
vllm has 96,158 GitHub stars, 24,317 forks, 7,953 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lancedb has 11,832 stars, 1,150 forks, 627 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vllm leads on adoption by 713% (96,158 vs 11,832 stars). vllm is written in Python under Apache-2.0; lancedb is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. vllm has attracted 25% as many forks as stars, lancedb 10%. lancedb 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 | lancedb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 96K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 24K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| 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 lancedb if
- You want the lancedb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and lancedb 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 lancedb
The Multimodal AI Lakehouse How to Install ✦ Detailed Documentation ✦ Tutorials and Recipes ✦ Contributors The ultimate multimodal data platform for AI/ML applications. LanceDB is designed for fast, scalable, and production ready vector search. It is built on top of the Lance columnar format. You can store, index, and search over petabytes of multimodal data and vectors with ease. LanceDB is a central location where developers can build, train and analyze their AI workloads. Demo: Multimodal Search by Keyword, Vector or with SQL Star LanceDB to get updates! ⭐ Click here ⭐ to see how fast we're growing! Key…
read the full lancedb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vllm or lancedb more popular?
vllm has 96,158 GitHub stars and lancedb has 11,832. vllm has the larger community by that measure.
Are vllm and lancedb free?
Both are open source. vllm is licensed under Apache-2.0 and lancedb under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vllm and lancedb?
vllm is written in Python and lancedb in Rust. 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 lancedb?
Choose vllm if you want the larger community (96,158 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose lancedb if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.