vLLM

High-throughput serving for production

Inference serverInference serverApache-2.0Self-hostedPythonAdvanced

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🐳 Docker pulls 📦 PyPI downloads / month 📦 npm downloads / month 🚀 Latest release ·

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What is vLLM?

vLLM is a high-throughput inference and serving engine using PagedAttention to maximize GPU utilization, the default choice for serving open models at scale.

Why people choose vLLM

Best-in-class throughput via PagedAttention
OpenAI-compatible server, broad model support
The de-facto standard for production serving

vLLM at a glance

Category	Inference server
Type	Inference server
License	Apache-2.0
Runs locally	Self-hosted
Built with	Python
Skill level	Advanced
Best for	production teams serving models at scale

Open-source alternatives to vLLM

Other open-source inference server tools worth comparing:

TGIHugging Face's production text server

SGLangFast serving with structured outputs

LMDeployToolkit for compressing and serving LLMs

Aphrodite EngineHigh-throughput LLM serving

TensorRT-LLMPeak throughput on NVIDIA GPUs

OpenLLMServe any open model as an OpenAI API in one command

KTransformersRun huge MoE models on one consumer GPU

Ray ServeScale model serving across a cluster

BentoMLPackage any model into a production API

vLLM head-to-head

vLLM vs TGI vLLM vs SGLang vLLM vs LMDeploy vLLM vs Aphrodite Engine vLLM vs TensorRT-LLM vLLM vs OpenLLM vLLM vs KTransformers vLLM vs Ray Serve vLLM vs BentoML

FAQ

Is vLLM free?

vLLM is free and open-source (Apache-2.0 license), so you can use, self-host and modify it at no cost.

Can I run vLLM locally?

Yes. vLLM is designed to run on your own machine or server, keeping your data private.

What is the best alternative to vLLM?

Popular open-source alternatives include TGI, SGLang, LMDeploy. See the comparisons above to choose.

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