# Core vs LM Studio (slim)

> LM Studio scores 57.9 (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-lm-studio.md (~2,250 tokens) · this version ~680 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ghost-core-vs-lm-studio.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ghost-core-vs-lm-studio
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-06

LM Studio scores 57.9 (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 #460 of 460 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/ghost-core.min.md
- LM Studio: C 57.9, rank #291 of 460 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lm-studio.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.
- LM Studio, good for A machine that serves open models to several agents and tools at once, in whichever API shape each client already speaks, and for headless serving on Linux with llmster. Ahead on Reliability, 34 against 5; Schema & documentation, 64 against 7; Agent ergonomics, 69 against 4; Security & auth, 59 against 6; Payments & pricing, 60 against 10; Maintenance & community, 72 against 3; Transparency & trust, 61 against 45. Also Free to start without a card.

| Category | Core | LM Studio |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 5 | 34 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 7 | 64 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 4 | 69 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 6 | 59 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 10 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 3 | 72 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 45 | 61 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Core | LM Studio |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Ghost (ZMJ, Inc.) | Element Labs, Inc. |
| 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 | Proprietary. The app and llmster are free for personal and internal business use under LM Studio's terms (Element Labs, Inc., effective 23 August 2026), with no source published. The `lms` CLI and the TypeScript and Python SDKs are MIT |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | none | 2026-09-19 |
| Popularity | none | 69k npm/wk, 15k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (1) | 2.5/5 (2) |