aicoolies logo
llama.cpp logo

llama.cpp

High-performance local LLM inference in C/C++

Share
open-sourceOpen Source
Visit Website →

llama.cpp is the foundational C/C++ library with 75K+ GitHub stars powering local LLM inference on consumer hardware. Provides optimized CPU and GPU inference for quantized models in GGUF format. Supports LLaMA, Mistral, Phi, Gemma, and most open-weight families. Features 2-8 bit quantization for reduced memory, multi-GPU support, context extension, grammar-constrained output, and an OpenAI-compatible API server. The engine behind Ollama and LM Studio.

llama.cpp is the foundational library for running LLMs on consumer hardware. With 75K+ stars, it powers Ollama, LM Studio, and many local AI applications.

Optimized for CPU (AVX/AVX2/AVX-512), Apple Silicon (Metal), NVIDIA (CUDA), and AMD (ROCm). GGUF format quantization from 2-bit to 8-bit reduces memory while maintaining quality.

Supports LLaMA, Mistral, Phi, Gemma, Qwen, and virtually all open-weight models. Features context extension, grammar-constrained output, batch processing, and speculative decoding.

Built-in HTTP server provides OpenAI-compatible API for seamless local inference. Continuously optimized by a large community.

Pricing

Free and open-source

Platforms

CPU, CUDA, Metal, ROCm, any OS

Categories

Tags

Use Cases

Alternatives

Related Tools

Claude

Claude

Top Pick

Anthropic's frontier AI assistant

Anthropic's AI assistant known for strong reasoning, nuanced writing, and extended context up to 200K tokens. Available in Opus (most capable), Sonnet (balanced), and Haiku (fast) tiers. Features web search, deep research, file analysis, code execution, artifacts, and Projects for organized workflows. Claude Code provides terminal-based agentic coding. API supports tool use, batch processing, and prompt caching. Available via claude.ai, mobile apps, and developer API.

freemium
xAI Python SDK logo

xAI Python SDK

Official Python SDK for the xAI API

The xAI Python SDK is the official Python client for the xAI API, giving developers a direct way to build Grok-powered apps without relying on community proxies or unofficial wrappers. It supports synchronous and asynchronous Python clients for chat completions, streaming responses, function/tool calling, and multimodal workflows, making it a clean fit for backend services, agents, notebooks, and developer tools that need programmatic xAI access.

open-sourceOpen Source
Cerebras logo

Cerebras

Wafer-scale inference at thousands of tokens per second

Cerebras Inference serves open-weight LLMs like Llama, Qwen, and GPT-OSS on wafer-scale CS-3 chips through an OpenAI-compatible API, benchmarking between 1,800 and 2,600 output tokens per second on Llama 3.1 8B and several hundred on 70B models. A free tier offers one million tokens per day with no credit card, while paid pay-per-token pricing starts at $0.04 per million tokens for the smaller Llama models.

freemium
Chatbox logo

Chatbox

One desktop app for every LLM — private, cross-platform, extensible

Chatbox is a cross-platform desktop AI client supporting OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, and local models via Ollama. All chat data stays on-device, making it ideal for privacy-conscious developers. Features include document analysis, code assistance with syntax highlighting, image generation, web search, and a local knowledge base for private Q&A. Available on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and web.

freemiumOpen Source
Baseten logo

Baseten

ML inference platform for production AI models

Baseten is the inference platform for deploying AI models at scale with dedicated and pre-optimized model APIs and performance-optimized infrastructure. Specializes in image generation, transcription, text-to-speech, LLM serving, embeddings, and compound AI workloads. Delivers 75% latency reduction with 415ms cold starts and 3000+ concurrent scaling. Available as managed cloud or self-hosted, trusted by Cursor, Notion, Descript, and Sourcegraph for production inference.

api-usage-based
Triton Inference Server logo

Triton Inference Server

NVIDIA's optimized AI model serving platform

Triton Inference Server is NVIDIA's open-source inference serving platform that deploys AI models from TensorRT, PyTorch, ONNX, TensorFlow, OpenVINO, Python, and more across cloud, data center, and edge environments. It supports dynamic batching, model ensembles, concurrent model execution on GPUs and CPUs, and real-time, streaming, and batch inference patterns. Includes Model Analyzer for profiling and Model Navigator for automated optimization.

open-sourceOpen Source

Comparisons