Updated August 2026
    Actively maintained
    Real momentum
    179k

    Ollama: Maintenance, Licence and Alternatives

    Get up and running with Llama 3.3, DeepSeek-R1, Phi-4, Gemma 3, and other large language models.

    TL;DR • Ollama • as of August 2026

    Ollama is an open-source generative artificial intelligence (genai) project, with 179k GitHub stars and a health score of 100/100. It committed 1135 times in the last twelve months across 12 of those months, and its status is actively maintained. Licence: MIT. It has real momentum, so treat it as a live competitor rather than a stale repository.

    179k
    GitHub stars
    100/100
    Health score
    1135
    Commits (12 mo)
    12/12
    Active months

    Maintenance health

    Status Actively maintained — Committed within the last 45 days.
    Last commit 2026-08-15
    Days since last commit 2
    Commits, last 3 months 241
    Commits, last 12 months 1135
    Months with activity 12 of 12
    Last release 2026-08-15
    Archived No
    Licence MIT
    Category Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)

    Health score combines commit recency, twelve-month commit volume, months with activity, release recency and archive state. Metadata refreshed August 2026.

    What the licence lets you do

    MIT

    Permissive (MIT, Apache, BSD): you can fork it, close the source and sell it. Lowest legal friction for a commercial product.

    This matters most when you plan to sell a hosted version. A permissive licence means anyone — including a competitor with more capital — can do the same, so your defensibility has to come from distribution, support or data, not from the code.

    What Ollama means for your idea

    Ollama is shipping code consistently, so a buyer comparing your product will find a maintained free option. Price and position against the total cost of self-hosting it, not against the paid incumbent's list price.

    Winnable, but differentiation is not optional. Pick one underserved segment and be visibly better for it rather than competing feature-for-feature with a free tool.

    Ollama: common questions

    Is Ollama still maintained in 2026?

    Actively maintained. Ollama recorded 1135 commits over the last twelve months, with activity in 12 of those months and 241 commits in the last quarter. Last commit: 2026-08-15. Last release: 2026-08-15. Committed within the last 45 days.

    Can I use Ollama commercially?

    Ollama is published under MIT. Permissive (MIT, Apache, BSD): you can fork it, close the source and sell it. Lowest legal friction for a commercial product.

    How crowded is the Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) category?

    14 open-source implementations, 12 of them actively maintained, led by Ollama at 179k stars. Saturation score 45/100 — Contested. Several maintained alternatives exist, but no one owns the category.

    Ollama alternatives in Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)

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    Khoj

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    Your AI second brain. Get answers from the web or your docs. Build custom agents, schedule automations, do deep research. Turn any online or local LLM into your personal, autonomous AI.

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    AGPL-3.0

    Competing with free? Check the market first.

    IdeaProof scores your idea against live competitors, market size and 1,000+ documented startup failures in about two minutes.