head to head · open source
vllm vs lorax
vllm has 92,028 GitHub stars, 22,335 forks, 7,953 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lorax has 3,832 stars, 324 forks, 189 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. vllm leads on adoption by 2,302% (92,028 vs 3,832 stars). vllm is written in Python under Apache-2.0; lorax is written in Python under Apache-2.0. vllm has attracted 24% as many forks as stars, lorax 8%. vllm was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (gpt, llama, llm, llm-serving), 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 | lorax | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 92K | ★ 3.8K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-05-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 22K | ⑂ 324 |
| 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 lorax if
- You want the lorax 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 lorax 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 lorax
LoRAX, short for LoRA eXchange, is an open source Python framework for serving many fine tuned large language models from a single GPU. It lives in machine learning infrastructure and uses base models with LoRA adapters. The base model is shared across requests, while task specific adapter weights are loaded dynamically for each request.
read the full lorax overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vllm or lorax more popular?
vllm has 92,028 GitHub stars and lorax has 3,832. vllm has the larger community by that measure.
Are vllm and lorax free?
Both are open source. vllm is licensed under Apache-2.0 and lorax under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vllm and lorax?
vllm is written in Python and lorax 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 lorax?
Choose vllm if you want the larger community (92,028 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose lorax if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.