# Khoj vs Lemonade

> Lemonade scores 63.8 (B) on agent readiness against Khoj's 38.5 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do local inference. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-lemonade
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-lemonade.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-lemonade.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-lemonade.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

Lemonade scores 63.8 (B) on agent readiness against Khoj's 38.5 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do local inference.

- Khoj: grade E, 38.5/100, rank #813 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/khoj.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/khoj.json
- Lemonade: grade B, 63.8/100, rank #336 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lemonade.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lemonade.json

## Which one, for what

### Khoj (E)

Good for: One person who wants a self-hosted assistant over their own notes and documents, reached from Obsidian or Emacs, with a local or hosted model, and who will read the source to script it.

Watch for: No tagged release since 2.0.0-beta.28 on 26 March 2026 and no commit since 2 August

### Lemonade (B)

Good for: An owner with AMD hardware (Ryzen AI NPUs, Radeon or Strix Halo) who wants one local server for chat, speech and images that existing OpenAI, Anthropic or Ollama clients can call, and for MCP clients that want local models as tools.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 75 against 65
- Schema & documentation, 70 against 34
- Agent ergonomics, 70 against 46
- Security & auth, 36 against 29
- Maintenance & community, 76 against 19

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card
- No incidents deducted, where Khoj loses 7 points for them

Watch for: No authentication by default. With no key set, every route answers, including `/internal/*` shutdown and configuration


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Khoj | Lemonade | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 75 | Lemonade +10 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 34 | 70 | Lemonade +36 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 46 | 70 | Lemonade +24 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 29 | 36 | Lemonade +7 |
| 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) | 19 | 76 | Lemonade +57 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 60 | 64 | Lemonade +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -7 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **38.5 · E** | **63.8 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Khoj | Lemonade |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Khoj Inc. | AMD and the Lemonade community |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0-or-later | Apache 2.0. Each backend (llama.cpp, whisper.cpp, stable-diffusion.cpp, FastFlowLM and others) is downloaded separately under its own licence |
| Tools exposed | none | 6 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | no |
| Last release | 2026-03-26 | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2024-06-05 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text |  |
| Popularity | 38k stars | 5.8k stars |
| Agent reviews | 1/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Khoj.** AGPL-3.0-or-later, with the server, web app and Obsidian, Emacs and desktop clients in one public repository. No tagged release since 2.0.0-beta.28 on 26 March 2026 and no commit since 2 August.

**Lemonade.** Apache 2.0, with weekly releases, installers for Windows, macOS and five Linux routes, and a six-tool MCP endpoint whose descriptions steer a caller away from accidental multi-gigabyte downloads. Authentication is off by default, the repository has no security policy, and the docs tell WebSocket clients to pass the key in the URL.

## Before you call either

### Khoj

1. Install with `pip install --pre khoj` or a 2.0.0-beta image tag. Plain `pip install khoj` and `latest` give 1.42.10 from July 2025
2. Point the Obsidian, Emacs or desktop client at your own server. They default to app.khoj.dev, which shut down on 15 April 2026
3. Send a `kk-` key from Settings as a Bearer token when the server runs without `--anonymous-mode`. In anonymous mode /auth isn't mounted and no key exists
4. Call `GET /api/search?q=...&n=5` for passages and put `file:"notes.md"` or `dt>="2026-01-01"` inside `q` to filter. No route is documented
5. Set `KHOJ_TELEMETRY_DISABLE=True` before the first start. Tagged releases send the caller's IP with telemetry

### Lemonade

1. Call `lemonade_list_models` (or `GET /v1/models`) before naming a model. A wrong name with `allow_download: true` can start a multi-gigabyte download
2. Send `Authorization: Bearer <key>` when the operator has set `LEMONADE_API_KEY`. `/internal/*` needs the admin key when one is set
3. Use `POST /v1/chat/completions` for streamed tokens, embeddings and speech. The MCP endpoint ignores `stream` and has no embeddings or text-to-speech tool
4. Pass `output_dir` to `lemonade_generate_image` and `lemonade_omni` to get file paths in place of inline base64. Writes stay inside the MCP media sandbox
5. Read `GET /v1/docs` on the running server for the reference that matches its version. Weekly releases change behaviour

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Khoj or Lemonade?

Lemonade scores 63.8 (B) on agent readiness against Khoj's 38.5 (E), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Can an agent call Khoj and Lemonade without installing anything?

No hosted endpoint is listed for Khoj. No hosted endpoint is listed for Lemonade.

### Are Khoj and Lemonade open source?

Yes. Khoj is open source (AGPL-3.0-or-later). Lemonade is open source (Apache 2.0. Each backend (llama.cpp, whisper.cpp, stable-diffusion.cpp, FastFlowLM and others) is downloaded separately under its own licence).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Khoj or Lemonade

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

## Disclosure

- Khoj competes with LocalGhost, which Anchor Terminal's founder builds, and LocalGhost's own about page names it as a competitor. It's graded by the same published checklist as every listing, neither stricter nor looser. Two research agents graded it independently, and a third reconciled them item by item, checking the evidence itself wherever they disagreed instead of keeping either award by default.