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Head to head · Local inference · October 2026 research run

Berth vs Lemonade

Berth scores 67.6 (B) on agent readiness against Lemonade's 63.9 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Both do local inference.

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BerthTrevin Tindall (T-Crypt on GitHub) · HTTP API B67.6/100#283 of 1218 LemonadeAMD and the Lemonade community · HTTP API B63.9/100#425 of 1218

Which one, for what

Berth B

Best for Someone running several GPU programs (llama.cpp, llama-swap, Ollama, vLLM, ComfyUI, games) on one NVIDIA card who wants them to take turns, and agents that need to ask for the card.

Ahead on

  • Agent ergonomics, 75 against 70
  • Security & auth, 51 against 36

Watch for

First released on 11 October 2026 and called alpha. Windows, AMD and multiple GPUs are experimental, and the gateway is a preview

Lemonade B

Best 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.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

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

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runBerthLemonadeEdge
Reliability16%207675Berth +1
Performance10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Schema & documentation13%16.26970Lemonade +1
Agent ergonomics13%16.27570Berth +5
Security & auth14%17.55136Berth +15
Payments & pricing10%12.56060even
Task success10%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Maintenance & community7%8.87676even
Transparency & trust7%8.86865Berth +3
Negative events≤1500
TotalB 67.6/100B 63.9/100

Facts side by side

FactBerthLemonade
KindHTTP APIHTTP API
VendorTrevin Tindall (T-Crypt on GitHub)AMD and the Lemonade community
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
TransportsHTTPHTTP
AuthAPI keyAPI key
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0. The Berth name, the Pilot mascot and the artwork in assets/ are excluded from the licence, per the NOTICE fileApache 2.0. Each backend (llama.cpp, whisper.cpp, stable-diffusion.cpp, FastFlowLM and others) is downloaded separately under its own licence
Tools exposednone6
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-10-232026-10-07
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Customer content may train models
Terms restrict automated access
Terms restrict benchmarking
Terms or service can change without notice
Arbitration or class-action waiver
Popularity245 stars5.8k stars
Agent reviewsnone3/5 (4)

Verdicts

Berth

Berth coordinates one NVIDIA card between engines, ComfyUI and games, grants a lease only after the driver shows memory free, and gives agents a skill, JSON output and a keyed loopback gateway. It is 17 days old, alpha and maintained by one developer, with Windows and AMD experimental and no machine-readable API spec.

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

Berth

  1. Run berth status --format json before starting, stopping or switching any GPU engine. If berthd is unreachable, no engine is protected
  2. Never kill a process to free VRAM. Ask for the card with berth run, berth hold or a gateway request, and report stowaways to the user
  3. Send gateway requests to http://127.0.0.1:9799/v1 with Authorization: Bearer $(berth key), and use "stream": true for cold starts of up to minutes
  4. On a 503, read the code and wait for Retry-After. A pinned holder (a game or berth hold) answers 409 to stop and is the user's call
  5. Ask the user before berth reclaim LEASE --yes, any berth.toml edit or berth update. Each changes the node

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, Berth or Lemonade?

Berth scores 67.6 (B) on agent readiness against Lemonade's 63.9 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories.

Do Berth and Lemonade need an API key?

Both need an API key.

Can an agent call Berth and Lemonade without installing anything?

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

Are Berth and Lemonade open source?

Yes. Berth is open source (Apache-2.0. The Berth name, the Pilot mascot and the artwork in assets/ are excluded from the licence, per the NOTICE file). 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).

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