Ollama

Ollama is an open-source tool with 184,000+ stars on GitHub that makes running large language models on your own machine as simple as a single command.

Overview

Ollama removes the setup friction from local AI. Instead of wrestling with weights, drivers and inference servers, you pull a model by name and start chatting or calling it through a local API within minutes. It supports the models people actually want to run — DeepSeek, Qwen, Llama, Gemma, GLM, MiniMax, Mistral, gpt-oss and many more — and it is written in Go, so it ships as one fast, dependency-light binary for macOS, Windows and Linux. Because everything runs locally, prompts never leave your computer, which makes Ollama a favorite for private experimentation, offline work and as the engine underneath countless other AI apps. The project is extremely active, with repository updates landing in October 2026, and the same tool can also reach Ollama’s cloud models when a local GPU is not enough.

Key Features

• One-command models – pull and run a model with a single command; no manual weight wrangling.
• Huge model library – DeepSeek, Qwen, Llama, Gemma, GLM, MiniMax, Mistral, gpt-oss and more, in multiple quantizations.
• Local REST API – serve models to your own apps, plus OpenAI-compatible endpoints for easy integration.
• Cloud models – run larger models hosted by Ollama when local hardware falls short, from the same interface.
• Custom models – build variants with Modelfiles: set prompts, parameters and adapters, then share them.
• Cross-platform – native apps and CLI for macOS, Windows and Linux, with GPU acceleration.

💳 Pricing

Ollama is free and open source under the MIT license for local use. Its hosted cloud models add paid tiers for heavier usage — see ollama.com for current cloud plans.

Who Is It For

Developers, researchers and privacy-conscious users who want to run capable open models on their own hardware, prototype LLM features locally, or power self-hosted AI tools without per-token API bills.