llama.cpp

Who it is for

For developers and individuals. It runs on Mac, Windows, Linux, and a computer you control. License: MIT. It is in the DevOps group.

What you pay

Free plan: The MIT license covers the inference code and llama-server. You bring the model file and the hardware. Hosted price: No llama.cpp subscription is listed on the project page. A host that runs it for you is a separate bill. This listing did not check one. Not checked. Run it yourself: Setup: medium. The README shows llama serve with a Hugging Face model id. The server README documents the HTTP routes. This listing did not price a machine.

How to switch

• Compared with Ollama Cloud. Its price on file: Pay as you go is $0 and bills every cloud model per token. Running a model on your own hardware is unlimited. The page does not print when the old free allowance ended.

  You only get part of: a catalog of open models you can pull by name.

  Free alternatives to Ollama Cloud

How close is it?

A full score means it matches our checklist. It is not a drop-in replacement.

• 90
  Instead of Ollama Cloud5 of 5 checked features. A full score means it matches our checklist. It is not a drop-in replacement.You only get part of: a catalog of open models you can pull by name.The server README says inference runs on GPU and CPU. You start llama-server on a machine you control.The server README documents OpenAI-compatible /v1/chat/completions and says a web UI is included.The README pulls a GGUF from Hugging Face with llama serve -hf. That is not the Ollama library name, such as gemma4, from ollama.com/library.The process runs on the machine you started. The README does not describe sending the prompt to a llama.cpp host. This listing did not capture traffic.The project page does not list a per-token fee. Hardware and the model download are yours.

Related alternatives

DevOps alternatives

• Free alternatives to Bitbucket
• Free alternatives to Conductor
• Free alternatives to GitHub
• Free alternatives to Jules
• Free alternatives to Ollama Cloud
• Free alternatives to Ona

Free apps in this group

• Aider: Terminal pair programming that commits each edit to git.
• Bugsink: A smaller Sentry-compatible error store.
• Cline: An Apache-2.0 coding agent for VS Code and the terminal. No inline autocomplete.
• Continue: An Apache-2.0 IDE assistant. The repository is read-only after the Cursor acquisition.
• cState: A Hugo status page. Incidents are markdown files.
• Cursor: A coding editor with Tab autocomplete and an agent. Free is limited. The code is closed.
• Devin: The desktop editor formerly sold as Windsurf. Free includes Tab. The code is closed.
• Errbit: An older Airbrake-compatible error catcher.
• Forgejo: A community forge, GPL-3.0 since v9.
• Gatus: A health dashboard with a status page in the config file.
• Gitea: A lightweight Git forge.
• GitHub Copilot: GitHub's coding assistant. Free is capped. The code is not public.
• GitLab Community Edition: The MIT edition of GitLab, without EE.
• GlitchTip: Error tracking compatible with Sentry SDKs.
• Highlight: Session replay and errors, with a split license.
• Kener: A status page with incidents, maintenance, and email subscriptions.
• Ollama: Run open models on your own computer. The license is MIT.
• OneUptime: Status pages plus monitors, incidents, and on-call.
• OpenCode: A terminal and desktop coding agent that can open a GitHub pull request.
• OpenHands: Agent Canvas, a self-hosted control center for coding agents.
• Radicle: A peer-to-peer code forge.
• SigNoz: Traces, metrics, and logs in one app.
• SourceHut: Git hosting composed of small services.
• Tabby: A self-hosted completion server. Community is free for up to 5 users.
• Uptime Kuma: Uptime checks, with a public status page of those checks.
• vLLM: An Apache-2.0 model server with an OpenAI-compatible API.

Where we looked

• https://github.com/ggml-org/llama.cpp
• https://github.com/ggml-org/llama.cpp/blob/HEAD/LICENSE
• https://github.com/ggml-org/llama.cpp/blob/HEAD/tools/server/README.md