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LocalAI: the best Open Source alternative to OpenAI API in 2026

LocalAI exposes an API 100% compatible with OpenAI's (chat, images, embeddings, audio) but running open source models on your own infrastructure, with no external API keys.

License MIT ~26k stars (estimated)Website GitHub Repository

Technical profile

License: MIT
Category: Artificial Intelligence
Replaces: OpenAI API
Tech stack: GoC++

Preview

Public image provided by LocalAI on its own website.

Key features

API compatible with the OpenAI SDK
Chat, images, embeddings and audio
Runs GGUF, GGML and more model formats

LocalAI vs. OpenAI API

Pros

Near-direct migration from code already using the OpenAI API

Things to consider

Needs decent hardware (ideally a GPU) for large models

Quick Docker installation guide

Copy this docker-compose.yml, adjust the example passwords and run docker compose up -d on your server. See the full step-by-step guide →

docker-compose.yml

version: "3.9"
services:
  localai:
    image: localai/localai:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    volumes:
      - localai_models:/models
volumes:
  localai_models: