# llama.cpp vs vLLM (slim)

> llama.cpp scores 60.2 (C) to vLLM's 57.7 (C) for local inference. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llama-cpp-vs-vllm.md (~2,500 tokens) · this version ~530 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llama-cpp-vs-vllm.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llama-cpp-vs-vllm
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

llama.cpp scores 60.2 (C) on agent readiness against vLLM's 57.7 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. vLLM leads on schema & documentation, maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do local inference.

- llama.cpp: C 60.2, rank #525 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/llama-cpp.min.md
- vLLM: C 57.7, rank #600 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vllm.min.md
- llama.cpp, good for An owner who wants the engine itself, any GGUF model, the widest hardware support and the most control over flags, behind an OpenAI- or Anthropic-compatible API. Ahead on Agent ergonomics, 73 against 64.
- vLLM, good for An owner with a GPU server who wants many concurrent requests against one open-weight model behind OpenAI or Anthropic compatible routes. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 68 against 47; Maintenance & community, 88 against 81; Transparency & trust, 67 against 60.

| Category | llama.cpp | vLLM |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 64 | 62 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 47 | 68 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 73 | 64 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 52 | 50 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 60 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 81 | 88 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 60 | 67 |

| Fact (where they differ) | llama.cpp | vLLM |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | ggml.ai (Hugging Face) | vLLM project (PyTorch Foundation) |
| Licence | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Last release | 2026-09-23 | 2026-10-02 |
| Popularity | 130k stars | 93k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | none |