# AnythingLLM vs Lemonade

> Lemonade scores 63.8 (B) on agent readiness against AnythingLLM's 53.3 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Both do local inference. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-lemonade
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-lemonade.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-lemonade.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-lemonade.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Lemonade scores 63.8 (B) on agent readiness against AnythingLLM's 53.3 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Both do local inference.

- AnythingLLM: grade D, 53.3/100, rank #631 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/anythingllm.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/anythingllm.json
- Lemonade: grade B, 63.8/100, rank #336 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lemonade.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lemonade.json

## Which one, for what

### AnythingLLM (D)

Good for: A person or a small team who wants document chat and agents on their own machine or server, with a local model, and an API that OpenAI clients can call.

Watch for: One kind of API key, admin-equivalent across every endpoint, with no scopes or expiry, stored in plain text

### Lemonade (B)

Good for: An owner with AMD hardware (Ryzen AI NPUs, Radeon or Strix Halo) who wants one local server for chat, speech and images that existing OpenAI, Anthropic or Ollama clients can call, and for MCP clients that want local models as tools.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 75 against 67
- Schema & documentation, 70 against 57
- Agent ergonomics, 70 against 46
- Transparency & trust, 64 against 59

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card
- No incidents deducted, where AnythingLLM loses 3 points for them

Watch for: No authentication by default. With no key set, every route answers, including `/internal/*` shutdown and configuration


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | AnythingLLM | Lemonade | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 67 | 75 | Lemonade +8 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 57 | 70 | Lemonade +13 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 46 | 70 | Lemonade +24 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 38 | 36 | AnythingLLM +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 78 | 76 | AnythingLLM +2 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 59 | 64 | Lemonade +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **53.3 · D** | **63.8 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | AnythingLLM | Lemonade |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Mintplex Labs | AMD and the Lemonade community |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (server, document collector, frontend and Docker image). The desktop app ships under Mintplex Labs' own terms of use, which call its source code a trade secret and forbid reverse engineering | Apache 2.0. Each backend (llama.cpp, whisper.cpp, stable-diffusion.cpp, FastFlowLM and others) is downloaded separately under its own licence |
| Tools exposed | none | 6 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text |  |
| Popularity | 67k stars | 5.8k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**AnythingLLM.** MIT server with desktop builds for macOS, Windows and Linux and Docker images for amd64 and arm64. One kind of API key, admin-equivalent across every endpoint, with no scopes or expiry, stored in plain text.

**Lemonade.** Apache 2.0, with weekly releases, installers for Windows, macOS and five Linux routes, and a six-tool MCP endpoint whose descriptions steer a caller away from accidental multi-gigabyte downloads. Authentication is off by default, the repository has no security policy, and the docs tell WebSocket clients to pass the key in the URL.

## Before you call either

### AnythingLLM

1. Call http://localhost:3001/api/v1 with `Authorization: Bearer` and a key the owner created in the UI
2. Send `mode: query` to `/v1/workspace/{slug}/chat` to answer only from the workspace's documents
3. Treat the key as admin. It can delete workspaces, users and documents
4. Read /api/docs on the instance for the endpoint list. Request bodies there are examples, not schemas
5. Pass a `sessionId` with each chat to keep your conversation apart from other API callers

### Lemonade

1. Call `lemonade_list_models` (or `GET /v1/models`) before naming a model. A wrong name with `allow_download: true` can start a multi-gigabyte download
2. Send `Authorization: Bearer <key>` when the operator has set `LEMONADE_API_KEY`. `/internal/*` needs the admin key when one is set
3. Use `POST /v1/chat/completions` for streamed tokens, embeddings and speech. The MCP endpoint ignores `stream` and has no embeddings or text-to-speech tool
4. Pass `output_dir` to `lemonade_generate_image` and `lemonade_omni` to get file paths in place of inline base64. Writes stay inside the MCP media sandbox
5. Read `GET /v1/docs` on the running server for the reference that matches its version. Weekly releases change behaviour

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, AnythingLLM or Lemonade?

Lemonade scores 63.8 (B) on agent readiness against AnythingLLM's 53.3 (D), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories.

### Can an agent call AnythingLLM and Lemonade without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for AnythingLLM. No hosted endpoint is listed for Lemonade.

### Are AnythingLLM and Lemonade open source?

Yes. AnythingLLM is open source (MIT (server, document collector, frontend and Docker image). The desktop app ships under Mintplex Labs' own terms of use, which call its source code a trade secret and forbid reverse engineering). Lemonade is open source (Apache 2.0. Each backend (llama.cpp, whisper.cpp, stable-diffusion.cpp, FastFlowLM and others) is downloaded separately under its own licence).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-lemonade.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-lemonade.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "anythingllm", "b": "lemonade"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare anythingllm lemonade`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/anythingllm.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lemonade.json

## Other comparisons with AnythingLLM or Lemonade

- [AnythingLLM vs Docker Model Runner](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-docker-model-runner.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs Foundry Local](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-foundry-local.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs Core](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-ghost-core.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs GPT4All](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-gpt4all.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs Jan](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-jan.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs Khoj](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-khoj.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs KoboldCpp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-koboldcpp.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs llama.cpp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-llama-cpp.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs LM Studio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-lm-studio.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs LocalAI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-localai.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs MLX LM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-mlx-lm.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs Ollama](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-ollama.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-open-webui.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs screenpipe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-screenpipe.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs TextGen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-text-generation-webui.md)
- [Docker Model Runner vs Lemonade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/docker-model-runner-vs-lemonade.md)
- [Foundry Local vs Lemonade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/foundry-local-vs-lemonade.md)
- [Core vs Lemonade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ghost-core-vs-lemonade.md)
- [GPT4All vs Lemonade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpt4all-vs-lemonade.md)
- [Jan vs Lemonade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-lemonade.md)
- [Khoj vs Lemonade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-lemonade.md)
- [KoboldCpp vs Lemonade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koboldcpp-vs-lemonade.md)
- [Lemonade vs llama.cpp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-llama-cpp.md)
- [Lemonade vs LM Studio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-lm-studio.md)
- [Lemonade vs LocalAI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-localai.md)
- [Lemonade vs MLX LM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-mlx-lm.md)
- [Lemonade vs Ollama](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-ollama.md)
- [Lemonade vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-open-webui.md)
- [Lemonade vs screenpipe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-screenpipe.md)
- [Lemonade vs TextGen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-text-generation-webui.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs Underdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-underdog.md)
- [Lemonade vs Underdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-underdog.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs LocalGhost](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-localghost.md)