# Jan vs MLX LM

> MLX LM and Jan score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 52.2 (D) and 51.3 (D). Jan leads on schema & documentation and security & auth. Both do local inference. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-mlx-lm
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-mlx-lm.md (~2,300 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-mlx-lm.min.md (~530 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-mlx-lm.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: 2026-10-09

MLX LM and Jan score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 52.2 (D) and 51.3 (D). Jan leads on schema & documentation and security & auth. Both do local inference.

- Jan: grade D, 51.3/100, rank #672 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/jan.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/jan.json
- MLX LM: grade D, 52.2/100, rank #657 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/mlx-lm.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mlx-lm.json

## 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:
- Schema & documentation, 56 against 37
- Security & auth, 43 against 32

Watch for: No release since 0.8.4 on 23 July 2026, while a security fix waits on main

### MLX LM (D)

Good for: An owner with an Apple silicon Mac who wants MLX-format models, local fine-tuning and quantisation from Python or the command line, with a simple local chat completions server.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 54 against 46
- Maintenance & community, 61 against 47

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- No incidents deducted, where Jan loses 4 points for them

Watch for: `mlx_lm.server` has no API key or other credential option, and `--allowed-origins` defaults to `*`


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Jan | MLX LM | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 68 | 66 | Jan +2 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 56 | 37 | Jan +19 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 46 | 54 | MLX LM +8 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 43 | 32 | Jan +11 |
| 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 | 61 | MLX LM +14 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 66 | Jan +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **51.3 · D** | **52.2 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Jan | MLX LM |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Menlo Research | Apple Inc. |
| 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 | MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-07-23 | 2026-10-01 |
| 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 | 7.3k stars, 140k PyPI/wk |
| 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.

**MLX LM.** MIT, with no telemetry found in the source, and the tests passed on the last eight pushes to main. `mlx_lm.server` has no API key option, answers any origin by default and loads whichever model a request names, and its own docs say it is not recommended for production.

## 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

### MLX LM

1. Keep `mlx_lm.server` on 127.0.0.1 and pass `--allowed-origins` with the origins you trust. There is no API key, and the default answers every origin
2. Treat any caller as able to load any model. The `model` and `adapters` request fields accept any Hugging Face repository or local path
3. Send `max_tokens` or `max_completion_tokens` when you need more than 512 tokens, the server default
4. Read errors as `{"error": "<text>"}` with 400 for a bad field and 404 for a model that failed to load. They are not OpenAI error objects
5. Poll `GET /health` before the first request. It answers 503 with `unavailable` when the generation thread has stopped

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Jan or MLX LM?

MLX LM and Jan score within a point of each other on agent readiness, 52.2 (D) and 51.3 (D). Jan leads on schema & documentation and security & auth.

### Can an agent call Jan and MLX LM without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Jan. No hosted endpoint is listed for MLX LM.

### Are Jan and MLX LM open source?

Yes. Jan is open source (Apache-2.0). MLX LM is open source (MIT).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-mlx-lm.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-mlx-lm.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "jan", "b": "mlx-lm"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare jan mlx-lm`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/jan.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/mlx-lm.json

## Other comparisons with Jan or MLX LM

- [AnythingLLM vs Jan](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-jan.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs MLX LM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-mlx-lm.md)
- [Docker Model Runner vs Jan](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/docker-model-runner-vs-jan.md)
- [Docker Model Runner vs MLX LM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/docker-model-runner-vs-mlx-lm.md)
- [Foundry Local vs Jan](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/foundry-local-vs-jan.md)
- [Foundry Local vs MLX LM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/foundry-local-vs-mlx-lm.md)
- [Core vs Jan](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ghost-core-vs-jan.md)
- [Core vs MLX LM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ghost-core-vs-mlx-lm.md)
- [GPT4All vs Jan](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpt4all-vs-jan.md)
- [GPT4All vs MLX LM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpt4all-vs-mlx-lm.md)
- [Jan vs Khoj](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-khoj.md)
- [Jan vs KoboldCpp](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-koboldcpp.md)
- [Jan vs Lemonade](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-lemonade.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)
- [Jan vs TextGen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-text-generation-webui.md)
- [Khoj vs MLX LM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-mlx-lm.md)
- [KoboldCpp vs MLX LM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koboldcpp-vs-mlx-lm.md)
- [Lemonade vs MLX LM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-mlx-lm.md)
- [llama.cpp vs MLX LM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llama-cpp-vs-mlx-lm.md)
- [LM Studio vs MLX LM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lm-studio-vs-mlx-lm.md)
- [LocalAI vs MLX LM](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/localai-vs-mlx-lm.md)
- [MLX LM vs Ollama](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mlx-lm-vs-ollama.md)
- [MLX LM vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mlx-lm-vs-open-webui.md)
- [MLX LM vs screenpipe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mlx-lm-vs-screenpipe.md)
- [MLX LM vs TextGen](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mlx-lm-vs-text-generation-webui.md)
- [Jan vs Underdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-underdog.md)
- [MLX LM vs Underdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mlx-lm-vs-underdog.md)