Head to head · Local inference · October 2026 research run
Jan vs KoboldCpp
KoboldCpp scores 60.5 (C) on agent readiness against Jan's 51.3 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Jan leads on security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do local inference.
Which one, for what
Jan D
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
- Security & auth, 43 against 38
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 49
Watch for
No release since 0.8.4 on 23 July 2026, while a security fix waits on main
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
- Schema & documentation, 68 against 56
- Agent ergonomics, 63 against 46
- Maintenance & community, 82 against 47
Also in its favour
- No key needed to call it
- No incidents deducted, where Jan loses 4 points for them
Watch for
With no --host the server accepts connections on all routable interfaces, and no password is set by default
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | Jan | KoboldCpp | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 68 | 68 | even |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 56 | 68 | KoboldCpp +12 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 46 | 63 | KoboldCpp +17 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 43 | 38 | Jan +5 |
| 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 | 82 | KoboldCpp +35 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 68 | 49 | Jan +19 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | 0 | |
| Total | 51.3 · D | 60.5 · C |
Facts side by side
| Fact | Jan | KoboldCpp |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Model platform | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Menlo Research | LostRuins (Concedo) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 for KoboldCpp and KoboldAI Lite. The bundled GGML, llama.cpp and stable-diffusion.cpp code stays under MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-07-23 | 2026-09-27 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2025-01-16 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | ||
| Terms restrict automated access | ||
| Terms restrict benchmarking | ||
| Terms or service can change without notice | ||
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | ||
| Popularity | 45k stars | 12k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | none |
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.
KoboldCpp
One file runs text, image, speech and music models behind a published OpenAPI 3.0.3 document, with eight releases in 90 days. The server listens on every interface with no password by default, and --password leaves the image routes open.
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
KoboldCpp
- Start with
--host 127.0.0.1and--password. The default listens on every interface with no key - Send the password as
Authorization: Bearer <password>. It is not read from the query string - Treat 503 as both busy and rate limited. The server never sends 429 or
Retry-After, and the wait in seconds is indetail.msg - Pass
max_lengthormax_tokens. The default is 2,048 tokens unless--defaultgenamtchanges it - Send a
genkeywith each generation so/api/extra/generate/checkand/api/extra/abortact on your request and not another caller's
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, Jan or KoboldCpp?
KoboldCpp scores 60.5 (C) on agent readiness against Jan's 51.3 (D), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. Jan leads on security & auth and transparency & trust.
Can an agent call Jan and KoboldCpp without installing anything?
No hosted endpoint is listed for Jan. No hosted endpoint is listed for KoboldCpp.
Are Jan and KoboldCpp open source?
Yes. Jan is open source (Apache-2.0). KoboldCpp is open source (AGPL-3.0 for KoboldCpp and KoboldAI Lite. The bundled GGML, llama.cpp and stable-diffusion.cpp code stays under MIT).
Other comparisons with Jan or KoboldCpp
- AnythingLLM vs Jan
- AnythingLLM vs KoboldCpp
- Docker Model Runner vs Jan
- Docker Model Runner vs KoboldCpp
- Foundry Local vs Jan
- Foundry Local vs KoboldCpp
- Core vs Jan
- Core vs KoboldCpp
- GPT4All vs Jan
- GPT4All vs KoboldCpp
- Jan vs Khoj
- Jan vs Lemonade
- Jan vs llama.cpp
- Jan vs LM Studio
- Jan vs LocalAI
- Jan vs MLX LM
- Jan vs Ollama
- Jan vs Open WebUI
- Jan vs screenpipe
- Jan vs TextGen
- Khoj vs KoboldCpp
- KoboldCpp vs Lemonade
- KoboldCpp vs llama.cpp
- KoboldCpp vs LM Studio
- KoboldCpp vs LocalAI
- KoboldCpp vs MLX LM
- KoboldCpp vs Ollama
- KoboldCpp vs Open WebUI
- KoboldCpp vs screenpipe
- KoboldCpp vs TextGen
- Jan vs Underdog
- KoboldCpp vs Underdog
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/jan-vs-koboldcpp.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/jan.json·/api/v1/tools/koboldcpp.json - From a terminal
anchor compare jan koboldcpp(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "jan", "b": "koboldcpp"}at/mcp, no key