# Core vs Jan (slim)

> Jan scores 51.4 (D) on agent readiness against Core's 7.3 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do local inference. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ghost-core-vs-jan.md (~2,050 tokens) · this version ~580 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ghost-core-vs-jan.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ghost-core-vs-jan
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-06

Jan scores 51.4 (D) on agent readiness against Core's 7.3 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do local inference.

- Core: F 7.3, rank #460 of 460 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/ghost-core.min.md
- Jan: D 51.4, rank #356 of 460 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/jan.min.md
- Core, good for A household that wants a dedicated box running open-weight models and a memory of its apps, files and devices at home, with a one-off price and no subscription, once it ships.
- Jan, good for A person who wants an open-source desktop app for local and cloud models with MCP, and an OpenAI-compatible endpoint for their own tools. Ahead on Reliability, 68 against 5; Schema & documentation, 56 against 7; Agent ergonomics, 46 against 4; Security & auth, 43 against 6; Payments & pricing, 60 against 10; Maintenance & community, 47 against 3; Transparency & trust, 69 against 45. Also Free to start without a card; Open source.

| Category | Core | Jan |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 5 | 68 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 7 | 56 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 4 | 46 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 6 | 43 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 10 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 3 | 47 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 45 | 69 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Core | Jan |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Ghost (ZMJ, Inc.) | Menlo Research |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Paid | Free |
| Licence | Not stated. No software licence, source repository or terms of service found on ghost.ai (checked 2026-10-05). Models listed are Qwen 3.8-Next, Qwen 3.8-27B, Gemma 4-31B and Muse-Glimmer-30B. Ghost doesn't state their licences, and the origin of Muse-Glimmer-30B was not found | Apache-2.0 |
| Last release | none | 2026-07-23 |
| Popularity | none | 45k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (1) | 2/5 (2) |