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PrivateGPT

Open-source API layer that turns local models into production AI apps.

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About

PrivateGPT is an open-source API layer for building private AI applications on local models. It follows the Claude/OpenAI API model, so you build once against its API instead of rebuilding backend primitives — RAG ingestion, retrieval, context building — for every project.

Important detail: PrivateGPT does not run models itself. It connects to any OpenAI-compatible inference server (Ollama, llama.cpp, vLLM) via OPENAI_API_BASE. It ships a built-in workbench UI at /ui for testing, and it powers Zylon, the company's on-premise enterprise platform.

What it can do

  • OpenAI/Claude-style API for private AI apps
  • RAG ingestion and retrieval primitives
  • Connects to any OpenAI-compatible server
  • Built-in workbench UI for testing
  • No cloud dependency

Setup

  1. Clone the repo and copy the example env file.
  2. Set OPENAI_API_BASE to your inference server (e.g. your Ollama URL).
  3. Start with Docker Compose.
  4. Open the workbench UI at /ui to ingest documents and test.
  5. Build your app against the PrivateGPT API.

Prerequisites

Docker; a running OpenAI-compatible inference server (Ollama, llama.cpp, vLLM).

Use cases

agentsautomationdata

Works with

Generic API

Trust score — 8/10

/10 trustVerified

Scored 8/10 (verified tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: 57.6k stars — one of the most-starred private-AI projects; pushed 2026-10-09 — very active. Manual review: honest architecture — does not run models itself, API layer over Ollama/llama.cpp/vLLM; powers Zylon enterprise platform. License: Apache-2.0.

★ 57,573 GitHub stars

How the trust score is built

Full methodology →
Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
9.0/10
Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
9.0/10
Openness · license + docs
8.0/10
Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
8.0/10
  • · 57.6k stars — one of the most-starred private-AI projects
  • · pushed 2026-10-09 — very active
  • · manual review: honest architecture — does not run models itself, API layer over Ollama/llama.cpp/vLLM; powers Zylon enterprise platform

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.