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Ollama vs Foundry Local: catalog facts
Ollama	Foundry Local
Freemium Running models locally is free. The optional hosted cloud inference starts at $20 a month.	Free Free to download from Microsoft.
Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line	Windows, macOS, Command line
One command to download and run a model, with no Python environment to build first A REST API on localhost, so editors, scripts and agents can use the local model	Runs models entirely on the device Hardware-accelerated local inference
Model quality is bounded by your hardware; large models need a lot of VRAM or unified memory The company now also sells cloud inference, so read carefully which mode you are in	Oriented toward developers building applications Licence terms are not stated in the research used here
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Closed source
License: MIT	License not stated
No account needed	Not stated if an account is needed
Works offline	Works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 20, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 23, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.