Foundry Local vs vLLM

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.

vLLM

Apache-2.0 software with a release about every two weeks, each with notes that list breaking changes and security fixes. The optional API key covers only some path prefixes, so /invocations and control routes such as /pause answer without it, and at least 81 security advisories were published in the 12 months to 9 October 2026.

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

vLLM

1. Put a reverse proxy that allowlists routes in front of the server. --api-key leaves /invocations and the control routes open
2. Pass --host 127.0.0.1 for single-machine use. With no --host the server listens on every interface
3. Set VLLM_NO_USAGE_STATS=1 or DO_NOT_TRACK=1 before starting if nothing should be sent to stats.vllm.ai
4. Start with --enable-auto-tool-choice and the --tool-call-parser for the model before sending tools. Tool calling is off without them
5. Send max_tokens on every request, and read the breaking changes section of the release notes before upgrading a minor version