# KoboldCpp vs Lemonade

> Lemonade scores 63.8 (B) on agent readiness against KoboldCpp's 60.5 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. KoboldCpp leads on maintenance & community. Both do local inference. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koboldcpp-vs-lemonade
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koboldcpp-vs-lemonade.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koboldcpp-vs-lemonade.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koboldcpp-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 KoboldCpp's 60.5 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. KoboldCpp leads on maintenance & community. Both do local inference.

- KoboldCpp: grade C, 60.5/100, rank #462 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/koboldcpp.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/koboldcpp.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

### KoboldCpp (C)

Good for: An owner who wants text, image, speech and music models behind one executable with a writing and roleplay interface, and clients that speak the KoboldAI, OpenAI, Ollama or Anthropic formats.

Ahead on:
- Maintenance & community, 82 against 76

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it

Watch for: With no `--host` the server accepts connections on all routable interfaces, and no password is set by default

### 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 68
- Agent ergonomics, 70 against 63
- Transparency & trust, 64 against 49

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


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | KoboldCpp | Lemonade | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 68 | 75 | Lemonade +7 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 68 | 70 | Lemonade +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 70 | Lemonade +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 38 | 36 | KoboldCpp +2 |
| 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) | 82 | 76 | KoboldCpp +6 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 49 | 64 | Lemonade +15 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **60.5 · C** | **63.8 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | KoboldCpp | Lemonade |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | LostRuins (Concedo) | AMD and the Lemonade community |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 for KoboldCpp and KoboldAI Lite. The bundled GGML, llama.cpp and stable-diffusion.cpp code stays under MIT | 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 | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-09-27 | 2026-10-07 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 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 | 12k stars | 5.8k stars |

## Verdicts

**KoboldCpp.** One file runs text, image, speech and music models behind a published OpenAPI 3.0.3 document, with eight releases in 90 days. The server listens on every interface with no password by default, and `--password` leaves the image routes open.

**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

### KoboldCpp

1. Start with `--host 127.0.0.1` and `--password`. The default listens on every interface with no key
2. Send the password as `Authorization: Bearer <password>`. It is not read from the query string
3. Treat 503 as both busy and rate limited. The server never sends 429 or `Retry-After`, and the wait in seconds is in `detail.msg`
4. Pass `max_length` or `max_tokens`. The default is 2,048 tokens unless `--defaultgenamt` changes it
5. Send a `genkey` with each generation so `/api/extra/generate/check` and `/api/extra/abort` act on your request and not another caller's

### 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, KoboldCpp or Lemonade?

Lemonade scores 63.8 (B) on agent readiness against KoboldCpp's 60.5 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. KoboldCpp leads on maintenance & community.

### Do KoboldCpp and Lemonade need an API key?

KoboldCpp needs no key. Lemonade needs an API key.

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

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

### Are KoboldCpp and Lemonade open source?

Yes. KoboldCpp is open source (AGPL-3.0 for KoboldCpp and KoboldAI Lite. The bundled GGML, llama.cpp and stable-diffusion.cpp code stays under MIT). 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/koboldcpp-vs-lemonade.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koboldcpp-vs-lemonade.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "koboldcpp", "b": "lemonade"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare koboldcpp lemonade`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/koboldcpp.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lemonade.json

## Other comparisons with KoboldCpp or Lemonade

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