# Foundry Local vs Underdog

> Foundry Local scores 60.5 (C) on agent readiness against Underdog's 29.5 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do inference open weights. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/foundry-local-vs-underdog
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/foundry-local-vs-underdog.md (~2,800 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/foundry-local-vs-underdog.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/foundry-local-vs-underdog.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

Foundry Local scores 60.5 (C) on agent readiness against Underdog's 29.5 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do inference open weights.

- Foundry Local: grade C, 60.5/100, rank #461 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/foundry-local.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/foundry-local.json
- Underdog: grade F, 29.5/100, rank #833 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/underdog.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/underdog.json

## Which one, for what

### Foundry Local (C)

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 33
- Schema & documentation, 53 against 24
- Agent ergonomics, 61 against 15
- Security & auth, 39 against 14
- Maintenance & community, 88 against 56
- Transparency & trust, 72 against 19

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card
- Open source

Watch for: The local server takes no credential, and its routes include model load and unload and `POST /shutdown`

### Underdog (F)

Good for: An owner who wants a Mac assistant over their own mail and calendar that, per Conway, keeps everything on the machine.

Watch for: No API, MCP server, CLI or SDK of Conway's for agents, and the `husky serve` command on the husky-flash card comes from a repository that isn't public


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Foundry Local | Underdog | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 68 | 33 | Foundry Local +35 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 53 | 24 | Foundry Local +29 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 61 | 15 | Foundry Local +46 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 39 | 14 | Foundry Local +25 |
| 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) | 88 | 56 | Foundry Local +32 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 72 | 19 | Foundry Local +53 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **60.5 · C** | **29.5 · F** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Foundry Local | Underdog |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | SDK + MCP | Model platform |
| Vendor | Microsoft | Conway Research |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP |  |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| 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 | Model weights Apache-2.0 on Hugging Face (Underdog 27B 1.0 and its ternary build, Woof 4B and 2B 1.1, Bark 0.8B 1.0); woof-1.0-4B carries the Apache-2.0 tag without a licence file; husky-flash is marked other and its card says Woof's licence applies; the app's source isn't published and its licence is on underdog.ai, unchecked |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-29 | 2026-09-30 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-01 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-09-30 |
| 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 | 2.6k stars, 105k npm/wk, 47k PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | none | 2/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**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.

**Underdog.** Apache-2.0 weights on Hugging Face for Underdog 27B 1.0, Woof 4B and 2B 1.1 and Bark 0.8B 1.0, with no gate. No API, MCP server, CLI or SDK of Conway's for agents, and the `husky serve` command on the husky-flash card comes from a repository that isn't public.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Underdog

1. Don't look for an agent interface to Underdog. We found no API, MCP server, CLI or SDK, and underdog.ai, where one would be documented, refuses our reader
2. Don't count on `husky serve`. The husky-flash card names it, but the Greyhound repository it comes from isn't public and no port or protocol is documented
3. Run `splash serve --model ConwayResearch/Underdog-27B-1.0 --default-reasoning-effort medium` with Inco AI's Splash 1.1.0 or later for an OpenAI-compatible endpoint on `127.0.0.1:8000`, and pass `--api-key`, since Splash starts without authentication
4. Pin a Hugging Face revision. Woof 4B went from 1.0 to 1.1 in eight days with no note of what changed
5. Check Woof 4B and 2B 1.1 files against the SHA-256 values in release-provenance.json before loading them

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Foundry Local or Underdog?

Foundry Local scores 60.5 (C) on agent readiness against Underdog's 29.5 (F), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Are Foundry Local and Underdog open source?

Foundry Local is open source (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). No open-source release is listed for Underdog.


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Foundry Local or Underdog

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

## Disclosure

- Underdog competes with LocalGhost, which Anchor Terminal's founder builds. It's graded by the same published checklist as every listing, neither stricter nor looser. Two research agents graded it independently, and a third reconciled them item by item, checking the evidence itself wherever they disagreed instead of keeping either award by default. underdog.ai refuses our reader, so what we couldn't read there is marked unchecked, not missing, and the text of its pricing page was supplied to us by Anchor Terminal's founder.