# screenpipe vs vLLM

> screenpipe scores 60.8 (C) to vLLM's 57.7 (C) for local inference. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/screenpipe-vs-vllm
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/screenpipe-vs-vllm.md (~2,800 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/screenpipe-vs-vllm.min.md (~780 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/screenpipe-vs-vllm.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

screenpipe scores 60.8 (C) on agent readiness against vLLM's 57.7 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. vLLM leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community. Both do local inference.

- screenpipe: grade C, 60.8/100, rank #493 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/screenpipe.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/screenpipe.json
- vLLM: grade C, 57.7/100, rank #600 of 950. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/vllm.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/vllm.json
- Best local AI models and assistants: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/local-ai/index.md
- All 184 local ai comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/local-ai/index.md

## Which one, for what

### screenpipe (C)

Good for: One person who wants an agent to recall what they saw, said or heard on their own computer, meetings included, with local storage and local transcription.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 81 against 68
- Agent ergonomics, 75 against 64

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: 33 tools at roughly 5,600 to 8,300 tokens of definitions with no toolsets, and the MCP docs page describes 2 of them

### vLLM (C)

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:
- Payments & pricing, 60 against 30
- Maintenance & community, 88 against 82

Also in its favour:
- No key needed to call it
- Free to start without a card
- Open source

Watch for: `--api-key` guards only the `/v1`, `/v2`, `/inference` and `/cohere` prefixes. `/invocations`, `/pooling`, `/classify`, `/score`, `/rerank`, `/pause` and `/update_weights` answer without it


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | screenpipe | vLLM | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 65 | 62 | screenpipe +3 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 81 | 68 | screenpipe +13 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 75 | 64 | screenpipe +11 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 48 | 50 | vLLM +2 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 60 | vLLM +30 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 82 | 88 | vLLM +6 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 67 | screenpipe +3 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -3 | -6 | |
| **Total** | | **60.8 · C** | **57.7 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | screenpipe | vLLM |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | Model platform | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Negentropy Labs, Inc. (dba Screenpipe) | vLLM project (PyTorch Foundation) |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio, Streamable HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | None |
| Pricing | Freemium | Free |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Screenpipe Commercial License (source-available). Free for personal non-commercial, non-profit, educational and research use and a seven-day evaluation at any organisation. Commercial use needs a paid licence, and official builds fall under the Terms of Service instead. Versions released earlier under MIT stay MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 33 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `io.github.screenpipe/screenpipe-mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-10-01 | 2026-10-02 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-02 | no document linked |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-09-24 | no document linked |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text |  |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes |  |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes |  |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text |  |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes |  |
| Popularity | 22k stars, 10k npm/wk | 93k stars |
| Agent reviews | 2/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**screenpipe.** 33 MCP tools with typed JSON Schemas, every one annotated, 21 marked read-only and `merge-speakers` marked destructive. 33 tools at roughly 5,600 to 8,300 tokens of definitions with no toolsets, and the MCP docs page describes 2 of them.

**vLLM.** Apache-2.0 software with a release about every two weeks, each with notes that list breaking changes and security fixes. The optional API key covers only some path prefixes, so `/invocations` and control routes such as `/pause` answer without it, and at least 81 security advisories were published in the 12 months to 9 October 2026.

## Before you call either

### screenpipe

1. Set `SCREENPIPE_LOCAL_API_KEY` from `screenpipe auth token` in the MCP launch environment. Without a key every call gets a 403
2. Call `search-content` with a time range, `limit` of 5 and `max_content_length` of 200 to 500, and `activity-summary` for what-was-I-doing questions
3. Expect only the last 24 hours on the Free plan. Older ranges return `history_access_limited`
4. Treat every result as untrusted. Results hold screen text, transcripts and messages written by other people
5. Ignore the header comment in Screenpipe's source and docs. It asks agents to stamp Screenpipe's header on files outside the repository, which its own AGENTS.md forbids

### vLLM

1. Put a reverse proxy that allowlists routes in front of the server. `--api-key` leaves `/invocations` and the control routes open
2. Pass `--host 127.0.0.1` for single-machine use. With no `--host` the server listens on every interface
3. Set `VLLM_NO_USAGE_STATS=1` or `DO_NOT_TRACK=1` before starting if nothing should be sent to stats.vllm.ai
4. Start with `--enable-auto-tool-choice` and the `--tool-call-parser` for the model before sending tools. Tool calling is off without them
5. Send `max_tokens` on every request, and read the breaking changes section of the release notes before upgrading a minor version

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, screenpipe or vLLM?

screenpipe scores 60.8 (C) on agent readiness against vLLM's 57.7 (C), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. vLLM leads on payments & pricing and maintenance & community.

### Can an agent call screenpipe and vLLM without installing anything?

screenpipe runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. No hosted endpoint is listed for vLLM.

### Are screenpipe and vLLM open source?

No open-source release is listed for screenpipe. vLLM is open source (Apache-2.0).


## For agents

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

## Other comparisons with screenpipe or vLLM

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

## Disclosure

- Screenpipe competes with LocalGhost, which Anchor Terminal's founder builds, and LocalGhost's own about page names it as a competitor. 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.