Head to head · Local inference · October 2026 research run
Jan vs Khoj
Jan has a score of 51.4 (D) against Khoj's 38.8 (E). Both do local inference. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 28 points.
Which one, for what
Pick Jan for
- schema & documentation (+22)
- security & auth (+14)
- maintenance & community (+28)
- transparency & trust (+5)
Pick Khoj for
No category where it leads by five points or more.
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Jan | Khoj | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 68 | 65 | Jan +3 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 56 | 34 | Jan +22 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 46 | 46 | even |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 43 | 29 | Jan +14 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 47 | 19 | Jan +28 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 69 | 64 | Jan +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | -7 | |
| Total | 51.4 · D | 38.8 · E |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Jan | Khoj |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model platform | Model platform |
| Vendor | Menlo Research | Khoj Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0-or-later |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-07-23 | 2026-03-26 |
| Popularity | 45k stars | 38k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | 1/5 (2) |
Verdicts
Jan
Apache-2.0, with installers for macOS, Windows and Linux plus Flathub and the Microsoft Store. No release since 0.8.4 on 23 July 2026, while a security fix waits on main.
Khoj
AGPL-3.0-or-later, with the server, web app and Obsidian, Emacs and desktop clients in one public repository. No tagged release since 2.0.0-beta.28 on 26 March 2026 and no commit since 2 August.
Before you call either
Jan
- Ask the owner to start the server (Settings, Local API Server) or run
jan serve. Nothing listens until then - Call http://127.0.0.1:1337/v1 for the app and localhost:6767/v1 for
jan serve. The ports differ - Read /openapi.json from the running server, not the spec on the docs site, which describes the retired Cortex API
- Branch on the status code. Error bodies are plain text
- Keep the bind at 127.0.0.1 on 0.8.4. Trusted Hosts is ignored on 0.0.0.0 until the next release
Khoj
- Install with
pip install --pre khojor a 2.0.0-beta image tag. Plainpip install khojandlatestgive 1.42.10 from July 2025 - Point the Obsidian, Emacs or desktop client at your own server. They default to app.khoj.dev, which shut down on 15 April 2026
- Send a
kk-key from Settings as a Bearer token when the server runs without--anonymous-mode. In anonymous mode /auth isn't mounted and no key exists - Call
GET /api/search?q=...&n=5for passages and putfile:"notes.md"ordt>="2026-01-01"insideqto filter. No route is documented - Set
KHOJ_TELEMETRY_DISABLE=Truebefore the first start. Tagged releases send the caller's IP with telemetry
Other comparisons with Jan or Khoj
Disclosure
Khoj competes with LocalGhost, which Anchor Terminal's founder builds, and LocalGhost's own about page names it as a competitor. 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.
Machine-readable
/api/v1/tools/jan.json·/api/v1/tools/khoj.json- This page as Markdown,
/compare/jan-vs-khoj.md