head to head · open source
vllm vs lightly-studio
vllm has 92,028 GitHub stars, 22,335 forks, 7,953 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lightly-studio has 889 stars, 34 forks, 53 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vllm leads on adoption by 10,252% (92,028 vs 889 stars). vllm is written in Python under Apache-2.0; lightly-studio is written in Python under Apache-2.0. vllm has attracted 24% as many forks as stars, lightly-studio 4%. lightly-studio 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 | ★ 92K | ★ 889 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 22K | ⑂ 34 |
| 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 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
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 lightly-studio
LightlyStudio is an Apache 2.0 Python application that opens in a browser and lets computer vision and MLOps practitioners curate, annotate, and manage image and video datasets entirely on their own machine, with no account and no data leaving the local system.
read the full lightly-studio overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vllm or lightly-studio more popular?
vllm has 92,028 GitHub stars and lightly-studio has 889. 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 (92,028 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.