# Core vs KoboldCpp (slim)

> KoboldCpp scores 60.5 (C) 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-koboldcpp.md (~2,650 tokens) · this version ~680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ghost-core-vs-koboldcpp.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ghost-core-vs-koboldcpp
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

KoboldCpp scores 60.5 (C) on agent readiness against Core's 7.3 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do local inference.

- Core: F 7.3, rank #842 of 842 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/ghost-core.min.md
- KoboldCpp: C 60.5, rank #462 of 842 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/koboldcpp.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.
- KoboldCpp, good for An owner who wants text, image, speech and music models behind one executable with a writing and roleplay interface, and clients that speak the KoboldAI, OpenAI, Ollama or Anthropic formats. Ahead on Reliability, 68 against 5; Schema & documentation, 68 against 7; Agent ergonomics, 63 against 4; Security & auth, 38 against 6; Payments & pricing, 60 against 10; Maintenance & community, 82 against 3. Also No key needed to call it; Free to start without a card; Open source.

| Category | Core | KoboldCpp |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 5 | 68 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 7 | 68 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 4 | 63 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 6 | 38 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 10 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 3 | 82 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 45 | 49 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Core | KoboldCpp |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Ghost (ZMJ, Inc.) | LostRuins (Concedo) |
| Auth | OAuth or key | None |
| 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 | AGPL-3.0 for KoboldCpp and KoboldAI Lite. The bundled GGML, llama.cpp and stable-diffusion.cpp code stays under MIT |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | none | 2026-09-27 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-05 | no document linked |
| Popularity | none | 12k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (1) | none |