# KoboldCpp vs LM Studio (slim)

> KoboldCpp scores 60.5 (C) on agent readiness against LM Studio's 57.8 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. LM Studio leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do local inference. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koboldcpp-vs-lm-studio.md (~2,600 tokens) · this version ~730 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koboldcpp-vs-lm-studio.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/koboldcpp-vs-lm-studio
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

KoboldCpp scores 60.5 (C) on agent readiness against LM Studio's 57.8 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. LM Studio leads on agent ergonomics, security & auth and transparency & trust. Both do local inference.

- KoboldCpp: C 60.5, rank #462 of 842 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/koboldcpp.min.md
- LM Studio: C 57.8, rank #536 of 842 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lm-studio.min.md
- KoboldCpp, 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 Reliability, 68 against 34; Maintenance & community, 82 against 72. Also No key needed to call it; Open source.
- LM Studio, good for A machine that serves open models to several agents and tools at once, in whichever API shape each client already speaks, and for headless serving on Linux with llmster. Ahead on Agent ergonomics, 69 against 63; Security & auth, 59 against 38; Transparency & trust, 60 against 49.

| Category | KoboldCpp | LM Studio |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 68 | 34 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 68 | 64 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 63 | 69 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 38 | 59 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 82 | 72 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 49 | 60 |

| Fact (where they differ) | KoboldCpp | LM Studio |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | LostRuins (Concedo) | Element Labs, Inc. |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 for KoboldCpp and KoboldAI Lite. The bundled GGML, llama.cpp and stable-diffusion.cpp code stays under MIT | Proprietary. The app and llmster are free for personal and internal business use under LM Studio's terms (Element Labs, Inc., effective 23 August 2026), with no source published. The `lms` CLI and the TypeScript and Python SDKs are MIT |
| Last release | 2026-09-27 | 2026-09-19 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-06-01 |
| 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 | 12k stars | 69k npm/wk, 15k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | none | 2.5/5 (2) |