# Jan vs LocalAI

> LocalAI has a score of 68 (B) against Jan's 51.4 (D). Both do local inference. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 33 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

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- Updated: 2026-10-04

LocalAI has a score of 68 (B) against Jan's 51.4 (D). Both do local inference. The largest gap is maintenance & community, 33 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
- LocalAI: grade B, 68/100, rank #133 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/localai.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/localai.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Jan for transparency & trust (+22).

Pick LocalAI for reliability (+16), schema & documentation (+25), agent ergonomics (+25), security & auth (+19), maintenance & community (+33).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Jan | LocalAI | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 68 | 84 | LocalAI +16 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 56 | 81 | LocalAI +25 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 46 | 71 | LocalAI +25 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 43 | 62 | LocalAI +19 |
| 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 | 80 | LocalAI +33 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 69 | 47 | Jan +22 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **51.4 · D** | **68 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Jan | LocalAI |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Menlo Research | Ettore Di Giacinto and the LocalAI team |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | MIT. Each backend image wraps an upstream engine (llama.cpp, vLLM, whisper.cpp, diffusers and others) under that engine's own licence |
| Tools exposed | none | 42 |
| 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 | yes |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-07-23 | 2026-10-02 |
| Popularity | 45k stars | 48k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | 3/5 (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.

**LocalAI.** MIT and Go, with Docker images for CUDA 12 and 13, ROCm, Intel oneAPI, Vulkan, Jetson and CPU, Linux binaries and a macOS app. No authentication by default. Loopback, LAN and VPN binds answer every caller, and keys set by environment variable grant full admin.

## 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

### LocalAI

1. Send `Authorization: Bearer <key>` when the operator has set keys. A 401 means the instance has auth on
2. Read /.well-known/localai.json and /api/instructions first. Both answer without a key and list what this instance can do
3. Back off on 429 and 503 for the Retry-After seconds. A 503 can mean the model is still loading
4. Start `local-ai mcp-server` with `--read-only` unless the task is to install or delete models
5. Take model names from /v1/models. Each instance names its own

## Other comparisons with Jan or LocalAI

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