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ExLlama vs Guidance

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted self-hosted ai options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
EX ExLlama Memory-efficient inference library for quantized Llama models VS GU Guidance Constrained generation language for controlling LLMs
FeatureExLlamaGuidance
Deploy effortRead-the-docs projectRead-the-docs project
Health score23 · At risk84 · Excellent
CategorySelf-Hosted AISelf-Hosted AI
LicenseMITMIT
LanguagePythonJupyter Notebook
Setup difficultyHardMedium
Min. RAM8,192 MB8,192 MB
Deploymentsourcesource
GitHub stars★ 2,946★ 21,776
First released20232023
ReplacesOpenAI APIOpenAI API

What are ExLlama and Guidance?

ExLlama

ExLlama is a standalone Python/C++/CUDA implementation for running quantized GPTQ Llama models with low VRAM use on modern GPUs. It is the predecessor to ExLlamaV2 and focuses on fast, memory-efficient local inference.

  • Low VRAM GPTQ inference
  • CUDA-accelerated
  • Standalone library
  • Fast token generation

Guidance

Guidance is a programming paradigm from Microsoft for steering language model output with interleaved generation, control flow, and constraints. It can run against locally hosted models to produce reliable structured results.

  • Interleaved generation control
  • Token healing
  • Regex and grammar constraints
  • Works with local models

Read the full Guidance guide →

ExLlama vs Guidance: key differences

ExLlama is written in Python, while Guidance is built with Jupyter Notebook. Guidance has the considerably larger community, at 21,776 GitHub stars versus 2,946.

Why pick each one

Choose ExLlama if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Active community (2.9k GitHub stars)
  • Written in Python
ExLlama details

Choose Guidance if…

  • Precise output control
  • Constrained structured generation
  • Works with local models

Watch out for

  • Paradigm takes learning
  • API models limit features
Guidance details

Frequently asked questions

Is ExLlama or Guidance better?

Guidance is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider ExLlama if its specific feature set fits your needs better.

Are ExLlama and Guidance free and open-source?

Yes. ExLlama is licensed under MIT and Guidance under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run ExLlama and Guidance with Docker?

ExLlama: check the project docs for container support. Guidance: check the project docs for container support.

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