# Ollama vs Underdog

> Ollama has a score of 56.6 (C) against Underdog's 29.9 (F). Both do inference open weights. The largest gap is agent ergonomics, 60 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ollama-vs-underdog
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ollama-vs-underdog.md (~1,850 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ollama-vs-underdog.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ollama-vs-underdog.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: 2026-10-04

Ollama has a score of 56.6 (C) against Underdog's 29.9 (F). Both do inference open weights. The largest gap is agent ergonomics, 60 points.

- Ollama: grade C, 56.6/100, rank #302 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/ollama.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/ollama.json
- Underdog: grade F, 29.9/100, rank #444 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/underdog.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/underdog.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Ollama for reliability (+20), schema & documentation (+55), agent ergonomics (+60), security & auth (+14), maintenance & community (+25), transparency & trust (+39).

Pick Underdog for nothing in particular (no category where it leads by five points or more).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Ollama | Underdog | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 53 | 33 | Ollama +20 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 79 | 24 | Ollama +55 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 15 | Ollama +60 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 28 | 14 | Ollama +14 |
| 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) | 81 | 56 | Ollama +25 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 63 | 24 | Ollama +39 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -4 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **56.6 · C** | **29.9 · F** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Ollama | Underdog |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | Model platform |
| Vendor | Ollama Inc. | Conway Research |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP |  |
| Auth | None | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT (server, CLI and desktop app). Ollama Cloud is a closed service under the ollama.com terms, and each model carries its own licence | Model weights Apache-2.0 on Hugging Face (Underdog 27B 1.0 and its ternary build, Woof 4B and 2B 1.1, Bark 0.8B 1.0); woof-1.0-4B carries the Apache-2.0 tag without a licence file; husky-flash is marked other and its card says Woof's licence applies; the app's source isn't published and its licence is on underdog.ai, unchecked |
| Tools exposed | none | none |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | not listed | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-09-30 |
| Popularity | 181k stars, 872k npm/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 2.5/5 (2) | 2/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Ollama.** An OpenAPI 3.1 file for the 15 native operations and llms.txt with 68 links to Markdown pages. No credential on the local API, and any caller that reaches it can pull, push, create and delete models.

**Underdog.** Apache-2.0 weights on Hugging Face for Underdog 27B 1.0, Woof 4B and 2B 1.1 and Bark 0.8B 1.0, with no gate. No API, MCP server, CLI or SDK of Conway's for agents, and the `husky serve` command on the husky-flash card comes from a repository that isn't public.

## Before you call either

### Ollama

1. Send `"stream": false` for one JSON body. The native routes stream NDJSON by default
2. Set `OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH=64000` or `options.num_ctx` before agent work. The default is 4k below 24 GiB of VRAM
3. Back off on a 503. It means the queue (512 by default) is full
4. Put an authenticating proxy in front before binding past 127.0.0.1. The server checks no credential
5. Expect model names with a `cloud` tag to run on Ollama's servers. They need `ollama signin` and fail with `OLLAMA_NO_CLOUD=1`

### Underdog

1. Don't look for an agent interface to Underdog. We found no API, MCP server, CLI or SDK, and underdog.ai, where one would be documented, refuses our reader
2. Don't count on `husky serve`. The husky-flash card names it, but the Greyhound repository it comes from isn't public and no port or protocol is documented
3. Run `splash serve --model ConwayResearch/Underdog-27B-1.0 --default-reasoning-effort medium` with Inco AI's Splash 1.1.0 or later for an OpenAI-compatible endpoint on `127.0.0.1:8000`, and pass `--api-key`, since Splash starts without authentication
4. Pin a Hugging Face revision. Woof 4B went from 1.0 to 1.1 in eight days with no note of what changed
5. Check Woof 4B and 2B 1.1 files against the SHA-256 values in release-provenance.json before loading them

## Other comparisons with Ollama or Underdog

- [screenpipe vs Underdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/screenpipe-vs-underdog.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs Ollama](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-ollama.md)
- [GPT4All vs Ollama](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpt4all-vs-ollama.md)
- [Jan vs Ollama](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-ollama.md)
- [Khoj vs Ollama](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/khoj-vs-ollama.md)
- [llama.cpp vs Ollama](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llama-cpp-vs-ollama.md)
- [LM Studio vs Ollama](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lm-studio-vs-ollama.md)
- [LocalAI vs Ollama](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/localai-vs-ollama.md)
- [Ollama vs Open WebUI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ollama-vs-open-webui.md)
- [Ollama vs screenpipe](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ollama-vs-screenpipe.md)
- [AnythingLLM vs Underdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/anythingllm-vs-underdog.md)
- [GPT4All vs Underdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/gpt4all-vs-underdog.md)
- [Jan vs Underdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/jan-vs-underdog.md)
- [llama.cpp vs Underdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/llama-cpp-vs-underdog.md)
- [LM Studio vs Underdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/lm-studio-vs-underdog.md)
- [LocalAI vs Underdog](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/localai-vs-underdog.md)

## Disclosure

- Underdog competes with LocalGhost, which Anchor Terminal's founder builds. 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. underdog.ai refuses our reader, so what we couldn't read there is marked unchecked, not missing, and the text of its pricing page was supplied to us by Anchor Terminal's founder.