Locally, yes, and without limits — the app is MIT-licensed and running models on your own machine costs nothing beyond the machine. The cloud service Ollama added in 2026 is a separate, metered product: its free tier is one concurrent request and basic models, and Pro starts at $20 a month, or $200 a year.

Does Ollama send my data anywhere?

A 2026 local-AI privacy audit found no telemetry on local inference. The caveat worth knowing is that a maintainer question about commercial licensing and telemetry has sat unanswered on Ollama's tracker since December 2024. The cloud plans are a different matter by definition: those run on Ollama's hardware.

The difference is the interface, not the capability. Ollama is the command line; LM Studio is the point-and-click app. Both run models on your own machine for free. Take Ollama if a terminal is comfortable and you want a local API to build against, and LM Studio if you would rather click.

A 2026 review of Ollama names three things: requests are serialised rather than handled in parallel, VRAM management is fiddly, and there is no image generation. Separately, it ships no graphical interface of its own.

Is the project still active?

180,325 GitHub stars, last pushed on 5 September 2026, with v0.34.0 released the same day.

Ollama explained: pricing, limits, alternatives (2026) • SaikoDev

Good for / not for

Technical users comfortable with a terminal who want free, private inference on hardware they already own.
Anyone who wants an OpenAI-compatible API running locally, so existing code can call a local model instead of a hosted one.
People who care about the licence: Ollama is MIT, at 180,325 GitHub stars, with v0.34.0 released on 5 September 2026.
Running models with nothing to pay — local use is unlimited, and none of the 2026 cloud plans are required to use it.

Non-technical users who want a graphical interface. That is the job LM Studio is built for.
High-concurrency serving: requests are handled one at a time, and the cloud plans that publish a figure cap concurrency at three (Pro) or ten (Max).
Image generation, which a 2026 review lists among the things Ollama does not do.

What it actually does

Ollama is a runner. You install it, ask it for a model by name, and it fetches the weights and answers on your machine rather than sending anything to a cloud service. It also exposes an OpenAI-compatible API, which is the reason it turns up as the engine underneath so much else: point code that already speaks that API at your own computer and it works. Local use is free and unlimited, bounded by your hardware rather than by a plan. In 2026 Ollama added a hosted cloud layer on top, and that part is metered. The cloud free tier allows one concurrent request and basic models, with starter credits. Pro is $20 a month, or $200 a year, for $60 of monthly usage credits and three concurrent requests. Max is $100 a month for $300 of credits, ten concurrent requests and early model access. A Team plan is listed at $500 a month in early access, with unlimited users and $1,000 of shared monthly credits, and Enterprise is quoted. None of that is required to run Ollama locally. What you trade for all this is interface: this is a command-line tool, and reviewers who like it still flag serialised requests and fiddly VRAM management.

What the free tier actually covers

Install Ollama and run a model on your own machine.

Nothing to pay, and no cap: local use is unlimited. The cloud service is a separate product — its free tier is one concurrent request and basic models.

From the vendor's docs

Pricing and free-plan limits

Free tier: The local app is free and unlimited on your own hardware. The cloud free tier is separate: one concurrent request, basic models and starter credits.

Plan	Price	What you get
Free	Free	Local use is unlimited on your own hardware The MIT-licensed app and its OpenAI-compatible API Access to the cloud on a starter allowance Limits: Cloud free tier: 1 concurrent request · Cloud free tier: basic models only The $0 tier is the whole local product. Only the cloud side is metered.
Pro	$20/month	$60 of monthly usage credits 3 concurrent requests $20 a month, or $200 a year.
Max	$100/month	$300 of monthly credits 10 concurrent requests Early access to new models
Team	$500/month	Unlimited users $1,000 of shared monthly credits Listed as early access.
Enterprise	Custom pricing	Quoted by Ollama No figure is published.

Prices checked on Sep 6, 2026 against the vendor's pricing page. Plans change often — confirm before you pay.

Three honest limitations

A 2026 review names three gaps together: requests are handled one at a time, VRAM management is fiddly, and there is no image generation.
A maintainer question about commercial licensing and telemetry has been open on Ollama's own tracker, unanswered, since December 2024.
There is no graphical interface. Everything happens at the command line, which is why anyone who will not open a terminal is pointed at LM Studio instead.

Alternatives

LM Studio — Choose LM Studio instead if you would rather click than type — same job, as a desktop app, free for personal and internal business use.
Jan — Choose Jan instead if you want a desktop app that is open source and has no paid tier at all, not even a cloud one.
Open WebUI — Choose Open WebUI instead if what you want is a multi-user, ChatGPT-style web interface rather than a runner — it still needs a model from somewhere.

Getting started in 5 minutes

Install Ollama from ollama.com. Local use is free and unlimited, and none of the cloud plans are involved.
Run one model from the terminal and confirm it answers before you wire anything else to it.
Use the OpenAI-compatible API when you want existing code to call the local model instead of a hosted one.
If you want a window rather than a terminal, the front ends in this category — Open WebUI and AnythingLLM — are built to sit on top of a model you supply.
Only look at the cloud plans if you need someone else's hardware: the free tier is one concurrent request, and Pro at $20 a month buys $60 of monthly credits and three concurrent requests.

Ollama questions

Is Ollama free?: Locally, yes, and without limits — the app is MIT-licensed and running models on your own machine costs nothing beyond the machine. The cloud service Ollama added in 2026 is a separate, metered product: its free tier is one concurrent request and basic models, and Pro starts at $20 a month, or $200 a year.
Does Ollama send my data anywhere?: A 2026 local-AI privacy audit found no telemetry on local inference. The caveat worth knowing is that a maintainer question about commercial licensing and telemetry has sat unanswered on Ollama's tracker since December 2024. The cloud plans are a different matter by definition: those run on Ollama's hardware.
Ollama or LM Studio?: The difference is the interface, not the capability. Ollama is the command line; LM Studio is the point-and-click app. Both run models on your own machine for free. Take Ollama if a terminal is comfortable and you want a local API to build against, and LM Studio if you would rather click.
What can it not do?: A 2026 review of Ollama names three things: requests are serialised rather than handled in parallel, VRAM management is fiddly, and there is no image generation. Separately, it ships no graphical interface of its own.
Is the project still active?: 180,325 GitHub stars, last pushed on 5 September 2026, with v0.34.0 released the same day.

Sources

Research-compiled, not hands-on tested. Compiled from official docs, the vendor's pricing page and community reviews as of Sep 6, 2026. We haven't tested it hands-on yet.