# Foundry Local vs Ollama (slim)

> Foundry Local scores 60.5 (C) on agent readiness against Ollama's 56.3 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Ollama leads on schema & documentation and agent ergonomics. Both do local inference. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/foundry-local-vs-ollama.md (~2,650 tokens) · this version ~730 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/foundry-local-vs-ollama.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/foundry-local-vs-ollama
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

Foundry Local scores 60.5 (C) on agent readiness against Ollama's 56.3 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Ollama leads on schema & documentation and agent ergonomics. Both do local inference.

- Foundry Local: C 60.5, rank #461 of 842 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/foundry-local.min.md
- Ollama: C 56.3, rank #570 of 842 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/ollama.min.md
- Foundry Local, good for An application that ships a model to end users' Windows, macOS or Linux devices and wants NPU and GPU variants chosen automatically, especially on Windows. Ahead on Reliability, 68 against 53; Security & auth, 39 against 28; Maintenance & community, 88 against 81; Transparency & trust, 72 against 59. Also No incidents deducted, where Ollama loses 4 points for them.
- Ollama, good for A person or an agent that wants an open model behind a local API with one install, and for pointing Claude Code, Codex or OpenCode at local or cloud models. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 79 against 53; Agent ergonomics, 75 against 61.

| Category | Foundry Local | Ollama |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 68 | 53 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 53 | 79 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 61 | 75 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 39 | 28 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 88 | 81 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 72 | 59 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Foundry Local | Ollama |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | SDK + MCP | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Microsoft | Ollama Inc. |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| Licence | MIT for the SDKs and the v2 native runtime. The CLI is closed source under Microsoft Software Licence Terms. Execution providers carry NVIDIA, Intel and Qualcomm licences, and each model carries its own | MIT (server, CLI and desktop app). Ollama Cloud is a closed service under the ollama.com terms, and each model carries its own licence |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-10-01 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-05-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-03-01 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | yes |
| Popularity | 2.6k stars, 105k npm/wk, 47k PyPI/wk | 181k stars, 872k npm/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (2) |