# Jan vs LM Studio

> LM Studio has a score of 57.9 (C) against Jan's 51.4 (D). Both do local inference. The largest gap is reliability, 34 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-lm-studio.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

LM Studio has a score of 57.9 (C) against Jan's 51.4 (D). Both do local inference. The largest gap is reliability, 34 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
- LM Studio: grade C, 57.9/100, rank #287 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lm-studio.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lm-studio.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Jan for reliability (+34), transparency & trust (+8).

Pick LM Studio for schema & documentation (+8), agent ergonomics (+23), security & auth (+16), maintenance & community (+25).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Jan | LM Studio | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 68 | 34 | Jan +34 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 56 | 64 | LM Studio +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 46 | 69 | LM Studio +23 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 43 | 59 | LM Studio +16 |
| 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 | 72 | LM Studio +25 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 69 | 61 | Jan +8 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **51.4 · D** | **57.9 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Jan | LM Studio |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Menlo Research | Element Labs, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | 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 |
| 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 | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-07-23 | 2026-09-19 |
| Popularity | 45k stars | 69k npm/wk, 15k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | 2.5/5 (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.

**LM Studio.** OpenAI-compatible chat completions, responses, completions and embeddings, Anthropic-compatible /v1/messages and a native /api/v1, all on one port. Authentication is off by default, so any local process can call the server.

## 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

### LM Studio

1. Send `Authorization: Bearer $LM_API_TOKEN` when the owner gives you a token. With Require Authentication on, every request needs it
2. Pass `previous_response_id` to /api/v1/chat instead of resending the history, and `store: false` for one-off calls
3. List models with `GET /api/v1/models` before naming one. A named model that's downloaded loads just in time
4. Install the Python SDK pre-release (1.6.0b1) and pass `api_token` directly. It reads `LMSTUDIO_API_TOKEN`, not the `LM_API_TOKEN` the docs name
5. Set `allowed_tools` on every MCP integration. Without it the model sees every tool on the server

## Other comparisons with Jan or LM Studio

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