Foundry Local vs KoboldCpp

Foundry Local

The SDK and its native runtime are MIT, at 2.1.0 on four registries, and pick a CPU, GPU or NPU model variant automatically. The optional local server has no credential, its current routes aren't in the published REST reference, and telemetry is on by default with an opt-out.

KoboldCpp

One file runs text, image, speech and music models behind a published OpenAPI 3.0.3 document, with eight releases in 90 days. The server listens on every interface with no password by default, and --password leaves the image routes open.

Foundry Local

1. Read the server URL from manager.urls[0] or foundry server status. The port is dynamic unless the owner sets web.urls or foundry server start --port
2. Send the model ID that GET /v1/models returns, not the alias. The alias resolves to a hardware-specific variant
3. Check supportsToolCalling before sending tools. Support differs by variant, and issue #1183 reports Qwen tool calling failing on QNN
4. Set your own request timeout. Inference has no built-in one, and cancellation takes effect only after the current generation step
5. Ask the owner to set ORT_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1 or disableNonessentialTelemetry before the manager is created if telemetry must be off

KoboldCpp

1. Start with --host 127.0.0.1 and --password. The default listens on every interface with no key
2. Send the password as Authorization: Bearer <password>. It is not read from the query string
3. Treat 503 as both busy and rate limited. The server never sends 429 or Retry-After, and the wait in seconds is in detail.msg
4. Pass max_length or max_tokens. The default is 2,048 tokens unless --defaultgenamt changes it
5. Send a genkey with each generation so /api/extra/generate/check and /api/extra/abort act on your request and not another caller's