# Lemonade vs PrivateGPT

> Lemonade scores 63.9 (B) to PrivateGPT's 53.2 (D) for local inference. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-privategpt
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lemonade-vs-privategpt.md (~5,100 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Lemonade scores 63.9 (B) on agent readiness against PrivateGPT's 53.2 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. PrivateGPT leads on schema & documentation. Both do local inference.

- Lemonade: grade B, 63.9/100, rank #494 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/lemonade.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/lemonade.json
- PrivateGPT: grade D, 53.2/100, rank #960 of 1510. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/privategpt.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/privategpt.json
- Best local AI models and assistants: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/local-ai/index.md
- All 280 local ai comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/local-ai/index.md

## Which one, for what

### 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 70
- Agent ergonomics, 70 against 64
- Maintenance & community, 76 against 41

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

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

### PrivateGPT (D)

Good for: A local backend for apps and agents that want an Anthropic-style API with document retrieval, citations and tools over local models.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 83 against 70

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

Watch for: Authentication is off by default, the server binds 0.0.0.0 and CORS allows every origin


## Why the edge

### Maintenance & community: Lemonade +35

- Lemonade (76): Stable release v2026.44.1 tagged on 28 October 2026 (30). Twelve stable releases in the 90 days from 4 August, from v11.5.2 (5 August) through v11.9.0 (1 September), v2026.39.1 (23 September), v2026.40.0, v2026.41.1, v2026.42.1 (14 October) and v2026.43.3 (21 October) to v2026.44.1, with a candidate every week, by the repository's tags (20). New issues were labelled by area and engine within a day or two on 8 October, and a Discord server is linked from the README. Comment threads weren't read, and GitHub's pages answer 403 in our session (15 of 25). The official MCP registry returned no entry for Lemonade on 2 November and there's no Lemonade client SDK, though OpenAI, Anthropic and Ollama SDKs work against it (5 of 15). A large CI matrix with self-hosted GPU and NPU runners, but the main workflow's badge read failing on 8 October and Dependabot is set up for dev containers only (6 of 10). 30 + 20 + 15 + 5 + 6 = 76.
- PrivateGPT (41): The last release is 1.0.1, dated 16 June 2026 in the changelog and tagged 18 June, 141 days before the check (10 of 30). No release or dated changelog entry in the 90 days since 8 August (0 of 20). Maintainers commit most days and outside pull requests merged in October, but 23 pull requests are open and the stale bot closes issues, including two security reports, with no maintainer reply (13 of 25). Homebrew tap, wheel index and Docker images ship with releases, and Anthropic SDKs work against it. No product MCP server of its own, though it connects to remote MCP servers (10 of 15). Dependabot, uv.lock, actions pinned by commit since 19 October and dependency CVE upgrades in June, July and August (8 of 10). 10 + 0 + 13 + 10 + 8 = 41.

### Schema & documentation: PrivateGPT +13

- Lemonade (70): We found no OpenAPI or Swagger file in the repository. The six MCP tools carry JSON Schema inputs from `tools/list`, though `messages` and `tools` are arrays of untyped objects and `stop` and `tool_choice` have empty schemas (12 of 25). No llms.txt at lemonade-server.ai (404). Every running server returns its own Markdown API reference at `GET /v1/docs` and through the `lemonade_docs` tool, so the reference matches the installed version and works offline (8 of 10). MCP tool descriptions say what to call first, which argument to prefer and what a wrong model name costs, and the API reference marks each OpenAI parameter as available or not (17 of 20). One enum (`response_format` on transcription), a minimum on `n` and required fields are declared, and the rest is typed loosely (8 of 15). Request examples in PowerShell and bash throughout, error tables on some endpoints and a JSON-RPC error table for MCP, but no single error reference (12 of 15). Notes with Headline and Breaking Changes sections on every release, kept in the lemonade-testing repository, and versioned route prefixes, with no CHANGELOG file (13 of 15). Re-read on 2 November at commit 17193fd, the six MCP tools and the missing OpenAPI file are unchanged. 12 + 8 + 17 + 8 + 12 + 13 = 70.
- PrivateGPT (83): An OpenAPI file of 38 paths in the repository (fern/openapi/openapi.json, version 1.0.1), also served by each instance at /openapi.json, with the messages API modelled on Anthropic's (25). docs.privategpt.dev serves llms.txt, a Markdown copy of every page and a docs MCP server (10). The docs explain each endpoint group, startup and model discovery, and a compatibility table says which parts of the Claude API are supported, partial or missing, such as prompt caching and OAuth (15 of 20). Pydantic models with literal type discriminators and required fields, while settings and tool context are wide objects (12 of 15). curl examples for each guide and a `/v1/messages/validate` route, with error shapes not documented as a list (9 of 15). `/v1` paths and a dated changelog, though releases trail main by more than four months (12 of 15). 25 + 10 + 15 + 12 + 9 + 12 = 83.

### Agent ergonomics: Lemonade +6

- Lemonade (70): Read with the MCP lines for `/mcp` and the API lines for the OpenAI-compatible routes. Six tools, with long descriptions (22 of 25). `max_tokens` caps output, `output_dir` returns file paths in place of inline base64, and `lemonade_list_models` has two include flags. We found no pagination on list routes (12 of 20). OpenAI-style error objects with a type and message, tool failures returned as `isError: true` with text a model can act on, and 501 on unsupported Ollama routes. No Retry-After or overload guidance found (15 of 20). No `readOnlyHint` or `destructiveHint` in the tool definitions and no idempotency keys. `allow_download` defaults to false, so a call can't start a download unless asked, and inference calls are safe to repeat (9 of 20). `model` is optional on the MCP tools, `lemonade launch claude` configures Claude Code in one command, and existing OpenAI, Anthropic and Ollama clients work unchanged, with no Lemonade client SDK (12 of 15). Re-read on 2 November, the tool definitions still carry no annotations, though the tool loader now accepts an annotations object. 22 + 12 + 15 + 9 + 12 = 70.
- PrivateGPT (64): Read for an HTTP API an agent calls on a local instance. Token counting, `top_k` style retrieval settings, citation output and response byte caps let a caller size context (18 of 25). Artifact listing by namespace and retrieval filters, with no documented cursor pagination (12 of 20). FastAPI validation errors name the field and the validate route checks a request before running it, but there is no error catalogue (12 of 20). Async messages and ingestion return task ids with status, cancel and delete routes. No idempotency keys were found (10 of 20). Anthropic SDKs and Claude Code work by pointing `ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL` at the server, but a model server and an embedding server have to be configured first (12 of 15). 18 + 12 + 12 + 10 + 12 = 64.

### Reliability: Lemonade +5

- Lemonade (75): Read with the local-software lines, since Lemonade runs on the owner's hardware with no hosted service behind it, though the listing's kind is http-api. Official installers for each platform (Windows MSI and winget, macOS pkg, Ubuntu PPA and Snap, Debian deb, Fedora rpm, an Arch package and a container on ghcr.io), with supported systems and a backend-by-device table in the README (20). A public CI builds and tests every platform with C++ unit tests, Python server tests and, since 15 October, model-backed conformance tests, and an MCP smoke test runs beside it. On 8 October 2026 the main build, test and release workflow's badge read failing on main, per the 8 October check, not re-read on 2 November because GitHub's pages answer 403 in our session (15 of 25). 411 issues and 158 pull requests were open on 8 October, with new reports labelled within a day or two; not re-read on 2 November (15 of 25). Versions are year.week.number, so the number carries no compatibility signal, but every release's notes have a Breaking Changes section, empty when there are none (v2026.44), and candidates carrying each change are published a week before stable (10 of 15). A stable channel separate from weekly candidates, and v11.9.0 before the scheme changed (15). 20 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 15 = 75.
- PrivateGPT (70): Read with the local-software lines, since PrivateGPT runs on the owner's hardware with no hosted service behind it. Homebrew tap, `uv tool install` from Zylon's own wheel index (not PyPI) and Docker Hub images `zylonai/private-gpt` 1.0.1 of 18 June 2026. Python 3.11 only, stated in pyproject.toml, and it needs a separate OpenAI-compatible model server (17 of 20). tests.yml runs format, lint, typecheck and the tests affected by each push on main, with the full suite of 217 test files on release pull requests. We couldn't see run results because the GitHub API refused us, and issue #2441 of 1 November reports the Claude spec update workflow failing (15 of 25). GitHub shows 3 open issues of about 1,250, because a stale bot closes quiet issues, two security reports among them, with no maintainer reply (12 of 25). release-please keeps a changelog with breaking changes marked, but no release has been cut since 1.0.1 while main carries 51 commits since 8 August, among them a breaking observability change of 23 October (11 of 15). Version 1.0.1 (15). 17 + 15 + 12 + 11 + 15 = 70.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Lemonade | PrivateGPT | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 75 | 70 | Lemonade +5 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 83 | PrivateGPT +13 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 70 | 64 | Lemonade +6 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 36 | 32 | Lemonade +4 |
| 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) | 76 | 41 | Lemonade +35 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 64 | Lemonade +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -7 | |
| **Total** | | **63.9 · B** | **53.2 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Lemonade | PrivateGPT |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | AMD and the Lemonade community | Zylon (PriBAI Technology Spain S.L.) |
| 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. Each backend (llama.cpp, whisper.cpp, stable-diffusion.cpp, FastFlowLM and others) is downloaded separately under its own licence | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 6 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-28 | 2026-06-18 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not read yet | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 5.8k stars | 58k stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | none |

## How the scores have moved

### Lemonade

- -0.2 on 28 October 2026: correction
- +0.2 on 28 October 2026: new evidence
- +0.1 on 27 October 2026: checklist

### PrivateGPT

No score change since it was listed.

## Verdicts

**Lemonade.** Apache 2.0, with weekly releases (v2026.44.1 on 28 October 2026), 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.

**PrivateGPT.** PrivateGPT 1.0 is an Apache-2.0 server that gives local models an Anthropic-style messages API with retrieval, citations, tools and MCP, documented by an OpenAPI file and llms.txt. A default start has authentication off, listens on every interface and reads local paths given as URIs, and a public report of that was closed without a reply.

## Before you call either

### 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

### PrivateGPT

1. Turn on `server.auth` and bind to 127.0.0.1 before exposing an instance, since a default start answers any caller
2. Point Anthropic SDKs or Claude Code at the server with `ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080`
3. Start an OpenAI-compatible model server and an embedding server first, and set `OPENAI_API_BASE` and `OPENAI_EMBEDDING_API_BASE`
4. Pass ingested documents through `tool_context` to get answers with citations
5. Treat web fetch, search and MCP results as untrusted, since PrivateGPT documents no prompt-injection handling

## Questions

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

Lemonade scores 63.9 (B) on agent readiness against PrivateGPT's 53.2 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. PrivateGPT leads on schema & documentation.

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

Lemonade needs an API key. PrivateGPT needs no key.

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

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

### Are Lemonade and PrivateGPT open source?

Yes. 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). PrivateGPT is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with Lemonade or PrivateGPT

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

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp