head to head · open source
vllm vs lightly-studio
vllm has 96,158 GitHub stars, 24,317 forks, 7,953 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lightly-studio has 902 stars, 42 forks, 53 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vllm leads on adoption by 10,561% (96,158 vs 902 stars). vllm is written in Python under Apache-2.0; lightly-studio is written in Python under Apache-2.0. vllm has attracted 25% as many forks as stars, lightly-studio 5%. 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 | lightly-studio | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 96K | ★ 902 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 24K | ⑂ 42 |
| 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 lightly-studio if
- You want the lightly-studio 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 lightly-studio 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 lightly-studio
Curate, Annotate, and Manage Your Data in LightlyStudio. The embedding plot shows how images relate to each other, with a preview on hover. A lasso selection filters the grid to one cluster. A search for "coffee" finds a match, and the annotation editor opens to label it. ⚡ Works smoothly with 2M+ images, embeddings included, on a single MacBook (M1, 16GB RAM). 🚀 Try it in 60 seconds LightlyStudio runs on your computer and opens in your browser. The following command downloads an example dataset with images, annotations, and evaluation results — no account needed. Local only: your images and datasets never…
read the full lightly-studio overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vllm or lightly-studio more popular?
vllm has 96,158 GitHub stars and lightly-studio has 902. vllm has the larger community by that measure.
Are vllm and lightly-studio free?
Both are open source. vllm is licensed under Apache-2.0 and lightly-studio under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vllm and lightly-studio?
vllm is written in Python and lightly-studio 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 lightly-studio?
Choose vllm if you want the larger community (96,158 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose lightly-studio if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.