# Jan vs TextGen

> Jan scores 51.3 (D) on agent readiness against TextGen's 45.1 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. TextGen leads on schema & documentation. Both do local inference. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-text-generation-webui
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-text-generation-webui.md (~2,300 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-text-generation-webui.min.md (~480 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-text-generation-webui.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

Jan scores 51.3 (D) on agent readiness against TextGen's 45.1 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. TextGen leads on schema & documentation. 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
- TextGen: grade E, 45.1/100, rank #775 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/text-generation-webui.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/text-generation-webui.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:
- Reliability, 68 against 51
- Maintenance & community, 47 against 24
- Transparency & trust, 68 against 49

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

### TextGen (E)

Good for: A person who wants one app for several backends (llama.cpp, ExLlamaV3, Transformers) with an OpenAI and Anthropic-compatible endpoint, LoRA training and image generation.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 61 against 56

Watch for: No release since v4.9 on 20 May 2026 and no code commit on `main` or `dev` since 31 May 2026


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Jan | TextGen | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 68 | 51 | Jan +17 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 56 | 61 | TextGen +5 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 46 | 50 | TextGen +4 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 43 | 40 | Jan +3 |
| 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 | 24 | Jan +23 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 68 | 49 | Jan +19 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | -4 | |
| **Total** | | **51.3 · D** | **45.1 · E** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Jan | TextGen |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | Model platform |
| Vendor | Menlo Research | oobabooga |
| 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 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-07-23 | 2026-05-20 |
| 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 | 48k 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.

**TextGen.** AGPL-3.0 with no telemetry, and a local API on 127.0.0.1:5000 that checks the Host header, limits CORS to localhost and separates an admin key from the caller's key. No release since v4.9 on 20 May 2026, no code commits since 31 May, no test suite, and ten security advisories in the year, all fixed.

## 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

### TextGen

1. Ask the owner to launch with `--api`. Nothing listens on port 5000 without it, and a model must be loaded first
2. Call `http://127.0.0.1:5000/v1`. Any Host header other than localhost or 127.0.0.1 gets 400 `Invalid host header` unless `--listen` is set
3. Send the key as `Authorization: Bearer` on OpenAI routes and as `x-api-key` on `/v1/messages`. Model loading needs the admin key
4. Read `http://127.0.0.1:5000/docs` or `modules/api/typing.py` for parameters. `max_tokens` defaults to 512 on chat completions
5. Run tool calls yourself. The API returns `finish_reason: "tool_calls"` and executes nothing on the server
6. Use the repository name `oobabooga/textgen`. The old `text-generation-webui` URL redirects

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Jan or TextGen?

Jan scores 51.3 (D) on agent readiness against TextGen's 45.1 (E), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. TextGen leads on schema & documentation.

### Are Jan and TextGen open source?

Yes. Jan is open source (Apache-2.0). TextGen is open source (AGPL-3.0).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Jan or TextGen

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