Anthropic
AI research company that makes the Claude models, the Claude apps and the Claude API.
Pricing Pay as you goPaid from $20 a month for Claude Pro; API from $1 per million input tokens (Haiku 4.5)Open source noStars 2.1knpm a week 54M
Ollama alternatives
10 tools you can use instead of Ollama, ranked by live GitHub stars and npm downloads. Anthropic, OpenAI and OpenAI API are the most used. Stats updated 5 hours ago.
LM Studio is the closest alternative: a desktop app for downloading and running open-weight models locally, with a chat UI and a local API. If you do not have the hardware, Together AI and Replicate run open models in the cloud.
When Ollama is not a good fit
Ollama is an open source tool for downloading and running open-weight AI models on your own machine, with a simple command-line interface and local API. Running models locally is always free; a paid Pro plan and hosted cloud models are also available for people who want more power than their own hardware provides. It integrates with tools like VS Code and coding agents such as Claude Code.
It is a weaker choice for:
- Users without hardware capable of running larger models at reasonable speed, though smaller models still run on modest machines
- Teams that need a fully managed, always-on hosted API rather than software they run themselves
- Workloads needing the absolute largest frontier models, which are typically proprietary and not distributed as downloadable weights
The alternatives
Most used first.
View Anthropic
OpenAI
AI research company behind ChatGPT and the GPT model family, accessed through apps and an API.
Pricing FreemiumPaid from $20 a month for ChatGPT Plus; API pricing varies by modelOpen source noStars 11.2knpm a week 51M
OpenAI API
Pay-per-token API access to OpenAI's GPT models for building AI into your own applications.
Pricing Pay as you goPaid from $0.10 input / $0.50 output per million tokens on GPT-6 LunaOpen source noStars 11.2knpm a week 51M
Hugging Face
Hub for open source AI models, datasets and demo apps, plus paid hosting for inference and Spaces.
Pricing FreemiumPaid from $9 a month for a PRO accountOpen source yesStars 167knpm a week 441k
Mistral AI
French AI company building open-weight and proprietary language models, accessed via API or Le Chat.
Pricing Pay as you goPaid from $5.99 a month for Le Chat Pro (student pricing), $14.99 a month standardOpen source nonpm a week 9.4M
Replicate
Run and deploy machine learning models in the cloud through a simple API, billed by the second.
Pricing Pay as you goPaid from about $0.000025 a second for small CPU instances, varying by model and hardwareOpen source noStars 598npm a week 705k
Cohere
Enterprise-focused AI company offering language, embedding and rerank models through an API.
Pricing Pay as you goPaid from $0.30 input / $0.60 output per million tokens on Command-light; current flagship Command A models are priced on requestOpen source nonpm a week 556k
Together AI
Cloud platform for running and fine-tuning open source AI models, with serverless inference and GPU clusters.
Pricing Pay as you goPaid from $0.09 per million input tokens (lowest-cost serverless models)Open source nonpm a week 120k
LM Studio
Desktop app for downloading and running open-weight language models locally, with a chat UI and local API.
Pricing FreemiumOpen source nonpm a week 68.6k
Perplexity AI
AI-powered answer engine that searches the web and cites sources, with a free tier and paid Pro/Max plans.
Pricing FreemiumPaid from About $20 a month (Pro plan)Open source no
Ollama and its alternatives, side by side
| Tool | Pricing | Free plan | Paid from | Open source | GitHub stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ollama | Freemium | Yes, running models locally is always free | $20 a month for the Pro plan, including $60 of usage credit for cloud models | Yes, MIT | 182k |
| Anthropic | Pay as you go | Yes, in the Claude apps. The API is billed per token. | $20 a month for Claude Pro; API from $1 per million input tokens (Haiku 4.5) | No | 2.1k |
| OpenAI | Freemium | Yes, in ChatGPT. The API has no free plan and is billed per token. | $20 a month for ChatGPT Plus; API pricing varies by model | No | 11.2k |
| OpenAI API | Pay as you go | No, the API has no free tier and is billed per token from the first request | $0.10 input / $0.50 output per million tokens on GPT-6 Luna | No | 11.2k |
| Hugging Face | Freemium | Yes: unlimited public model, dataset and Space hosting, free CPU and limited ZeroGPU compute | $9 a month for a PRO account | Yes, Open source libraries (e.g. Transformers) are Apache-2.0; hosted models and datasets carry their own individual licenses | 167k |
| Mistral AI | Pay as you go | Yes, in Le Chat, with limited usage and $10 a month in API credits | $5.99 a month for Le Chat Pro (student pricing), $14.99 a month standard | No | None |
| Replicate | Pay as you go | No ongoing free plan; billing is pay-as-you-go with no monthly minimum | about $0.000025 a second for small CPU instances, varying by model and hardware | No | 598 |
| Cohere | Pay as you go | Yes: evaluation API keys are free but limited in usage | $0.30 input / $0.60 output per million tokens on Command-light; current flagship Command A models are priced on request | No | None |
| Together AI | Pay as you go | Limited free credits are typically available for new accounts to try the platform | $0.09 per million input tokens (lowest-cost serverless models) | No | None |
| LM Studio | Freemium | Yes, the core app and running local models is free | Not listed | No | None |
| Perplexity AI | Freemium | Yes: free tier available with standard search and limited access to advanced features | About $20 a month (Pro plan) | No | None |
Pricing facts come from each tool's official pricing page, with the checked date on the tool's own page.
Questions
What is the most popular alternative to Ollama?
By GitHub stars, Anthropic is the most used alternative to Ollama listed on ScratchDB, with 2.1k stars.
Which Ollama alternatives are open source?
Hugging Face is open source.
Which Ollama alternatives have a free plan?
Anthropic, OpenAI, Hugging Face, Mistral AI, Cohere, LM Studio and Perplexity AI have a free plan. The table on this page shows what each one includes.