# 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. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-khoj
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-khoj.md (~1,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-khoj.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-khoj.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-05

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.

- Jan: grade D, 51.4/100, rank #349 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/jan.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/jan.json
- Khoj: grade E, 38.8/100, rank #426 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/khoj.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/khoj.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Jan for schema & documentation (+22), security & auth (+14), maintenance & community (+28), transparency & trust (+5).

Pick Khoj for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Jan | Khoj | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 68 | 65 | Jan +3 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 56 | 34 | Jan +22 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 46 | 46 | even |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 43 | 29 | Jan +14 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 60 | 60 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 47 | 19 | Jan +28 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 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

1. Ask the owner to start the server (Settings, Local API Server) or run `jan serve`. Nothing listens until then
2. Call http://127.0.0.1:1337/v1 for the app and localhost:6767/v1 for `jan serve`. The ports differ
3. Read /openapi.json from the running server, not the spec on the docs site, which describes the retired Cortex API
4. Branch on the status code. Error bodies are plain text
5. 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

1. Install with `pip install --pre khoj` or a 2.0.0-beta image tag. Plain `pip install khoj` and `latest` give 1.42.10 from July 2025
2. Point the Obsidian, Emacs or desktop client at your own server. They default to app.khoj.dev, which shut down on 15 April 2026
3. 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
4. Call `GET /api/search?q=...&n=5` for passages and put `file:"notes.md"` or `dt>="2026-01-01"` inside `q` to filter. No route is documented
5. Set `KHOJ_TELEMETRY_DISABLE=True` before the first start. Tagged releases send the caller's IP with telemetry

## Other comparisons with Jan or Khoj

- [AnythingLLM vs Jan](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-jan.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs Khoj](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-khoj.md)
- [GPT4All vs Jan](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpt4all-vs-jan.md)
- [GPT4All vs Khoj](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpt4all-vs-khoj.md)
- [Jan vs llama.cpp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-llama-cpp.md)
- [Jan vs LM Studio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-lm-studio.md)
- [Jan vs LocalAI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-localai.md)
- [Jan vs Ollama](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-ollama.md)
- [Jan vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-open-webui.md)
- [Jan vs screenpipe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-screenpipe.md)
- [Khoj vs llama.cpp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-llama-cpp.md)
- [Khoj vs LM Studio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-lm-studio.md)
- [Khoj vs LocalAI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-localai.md)
- [Khoj vs Ollama](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-ollama.md)
- [Khoj vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-open-webui.md)
- [Jan vs Underdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-underdog.md)
- [Khoj vs LocalGhost](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-localghost.md)
- [Khoj vs screenpipe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-screenpipe.md)

## 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.