head to head · open source
Yaak vs optillm
Yaak has 19,243 GitHub stars, 817 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. optillm has 4,296 stars, 388 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Yaak leads on adoption by 348% (19,243 vs 4,296 stars). Yaak is written in TypeScript under MIT; optillm is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Yaak has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, optillm 9%. Yaak 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Yaak | optillm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 4.3K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 817 | ⑂ 388 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Yaak if
- You weight community size — 19K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick optillm if
- You want the optillm 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 optillm fits your workflow better
About Yaak
Yaak is a desktop API client for REST, GraphQL, gRPC, WebSocket, and Server Sent Events. It is built with Tauri, Rust, and React, and it lives in the developer tools ecosystem for API development and testing. The project presents itself as an offline first, privacy first alternative to Postman, Insomnia, and Bruno.
About optillm
OptiLLM is a Python project that provides an optimizing inference proxy for large language models. It exposes an OpenAI API compatible endpoint and sits between an application and model providers, allowing callers to request reasoning oriented optimizations without changing model weights or adding training. The project lives in the developer tools and API development ecosystem, and its topics connect it to agents, agentic workflows, API gateways, chain of thought prompting, and generative AI inference.
read the full optillm overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More API Development & Testing projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the API Development & Testing field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Yaak or optillm more popular?
Yaak has 19,243 GitHub stars and optillm has 4,296. Yaak has the larger community by that measure.
Are Yaak and optillm free?
Both are open source. Yaak is licensed under MIT and optillm under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Yaak and optillm?
Yaak is written in TypeScript and optillm 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, Yaak or optillm?
Choose Yaak if you want the larger community (19,243 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose optillm if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.