llmfit
Find out which open-source Large Language Models (LLMs) your hardware can comfortably run. llmfit inspects your CPU, system RAM, GPU(s), VRAM, and accelerator configuration to recommend models across popular quantizations.
📊 New: benchmark & share — real numbers from your machine, better estimates for everyone. Download a model, serve it, and measure real tok/s on your hardware — then contribute the results back to the project as a PR, straight from the TUI. No gh CLI, no third-party account. Every run is saved locally first, your own measurements replace estimates in the fit table, and each merged submission ships in the next release: anyone on identical hardware gets measured ✓ numbers before they ever run a benchmark. Follow the step-by-step benchmarking guide →
Features
- Hardware Auto-Detection: Detects CPU cores, system RAM, available discrete/integrated GPUs, VRAM, and unified memory architecture (NVIDIA CUDA, Apple Silicon, AMD ROCm, Intel OneAPI).
- Model Compatibility Engine: Analyzes model parameter counts, context lengths, and quantization formats (GGUF, AWQ, GPTQ, EXL2) to project memory footprints and tokens-per-second performance.
- Interactive TUI & Web Dashboard: Choose between a lightweight, zero-dependency terminal interface or a feature-rich web dashboard.
- REST API Endpoint: Exposes standard HTTP JSON endpoints (
/api/v1/system,/api/v1/models) for integration into orchestrators, dashboards, and automated deployment pipelines. - Multi-Platform Support: macOS (Apple Silicon & Intel), Linux (x86_64 & ARM64), and Windows (x86_64).
- Hundreds of models & providers. One command to find what runs on your hardware.
A terminal tool that right-sizes LLM models to your system's RAM, CPU, and GPU. Detects your hardware, scores each model across quality, speed, fit, and context dimensions, and tells you which ones will actually run well on your machine.
Ships with an interactive TUI (default) and a classic CLI mode. Supports multi-GPU setups, MoE architectures, dynamic quantization selection, speed estimation, and local runtime providers (Ollama, llama.cpp, MLX, Docker Model Runner, LM Studio).
Sister projects
- sympozium — managing agents in Kubernetes.
- llmserve — a simple TUI for serving local LLM models. Pick a model, pick a backend, serve it.
- llama-panel — a native macOS app for managing local llama-server instances.
- llmfit-gui — a Windows desktop GUI (PowerShell + WinForms) for llmfit: browse recommendations, download into LM Studio/Ollama, and benchmark, all point-and-click.
Documentation
| Get started | Install · Usage · How it works |
| Guides | TUI guide · Benchmarking step-by-step · CLI & automation · Runtime providers · OpenClaw integration |
| Reference | How it works (full) · Platform & GPU support · Custom models · Development |
| Project | Contributing · Alternatives · Code signing · License |
Install
Windows
scoop install llmfitIf Scoop is not installed, follow the Scoop installation guide.
macOS / Linux
Homebrew
Prebuilt binary (recommended, works on all macOS/Linux versions):
brew install AlexsJones/llmfit/llmfitOr from the homebrew-core formula, which builds from source on macOS versions without a bottle:
brew install llmfitMacPorts
port install llmfitQuick install
curl -fsSL https://llmfit.axjns.dev/install.sh | shDownloads the latest release binary from GitHub and installs it to /usr/local/bin (or ~/.local/bin if no sudo).
Install to ~/.local/bin without sudo:
curl -fsSL https://llmfit.axjns.dev/install.sh | sh -s -- --localuv / pip
To install or update llmfit:
uv tool install -U llmfitTo run without installing:
uvx llmfitYou can also install llmfit as a Python package in the normal way with tools such as pip or uv.
Pre-built Binaries
Download release binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows directly from the GitHub Releases page. Windows binaries are signed only when that release's complete sign-windows job succeeds, including signing, repackaging, artifact replacement, and checksum upload; a release may still publish an unsigned Windows artifact if signing is skipped or fails. Verify the executable signature if you require a signed binary.
Container Deployment
llmfit provides a multi-architecture Docker image (ghcr.io/alexsjones/llmfit) supporting both interactive CLI/TUI and headless Web UI / API server modes.
Interactive TUI
To launch the interactive TUI instead, pass the global --tui flag:
docker run -it --rm ghcr.io/alexsjones/llmfit --tuiNon-Interactive
This prints JSON from llmfit recommend command.
docker run ghcr.io/alexsjones/llmfitThis prints JSON from llmfit recommend command. The JSON could be further queried with jq.
podman run ghcr.io/alexsjones/llmfit recommend --use-case coding | jq '.models[].name'
To launch the interactive TUI instead, pass the global --tui flag:
docker run --rm -it ghcr.io/alexsjones/llmfit --tuiFrom source
git clone https://github.com/AlexsJones/llmfit.git
cd llmfit
cargo build --release
# binary is at target/release/llmfitUsage
Terminal Interface (TUI)
Launch llmfit in your terminal without flags to start the interactive browser:
llmfit # interactive TUI: your hardware, every model, rankedThe TUI shows your detected specs at the top and every model scored for fit, speed, quality, and context. See the TUI guide for navigation, planning, simulation, downloads, the community leaderboard, and benchmarking.
Keybindings inside the TUI:
b: Open community benchmarks;I: Open live inference benchmarksh: Show help and keybindings↑/↓ork/j: Navigate list items/: Filter models by name, family, or quantizationEsc: Clear search / Back
Command Line Options
# Print hardware telemetry and recommended models to standard output
llmfit recommend
# Output system profile and recommendations in raw JSON format
llmfit recommend --json
# Estimate SSD capacity for keeping three runnable models
llmfit storage --keep 3 --selection largest --json
# Start the native HTTP API server
llmfit serve --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8787See model library storage for selection, OS reserve, download scratch, free-space headroom, and hardware simulation.
Web UI & API Server
docker run -d -p 8787:8787 ghcr.io/alexsjones/llmfit serveDocker Compose
---
services:
llmfit:
image: ghcr.io/alexsjones/llmfit:latest
container_name: llmfit
restart: unless-stopped
command: ["serve", "--host", "0.0.0.0", "--port", "8787"]
ports:
- "8787:8787"
healthcheck:
test: ["CMD", "curl", "-f", "http://localhost:8787/health"]
interval: 15s
timeout: 5s
retries: 3
start_period: 10sFor scripts, agents, and classic terminal output:
llmfit fit # table of all models ranked by fit
llmfit recommend --json # top picks as JSON (agent/script consumption)
llmfit info "<model>" # one model: fit analysis, estimate basis, verify commands
llmfit bench # measure real tok/s/TTFT against your running provider
llmfit doctor # hardware detection report for bug reports
llmfit serve # start the api and web user interfaceFull reference: CLI & automation.
Community & Benchmarks
llmfit includes hardware detection and performance benchmarks contributed by the community. You can share your hardware benchmark results using:
llmfit bench --shareHow it works
llmfit detects your hardware (RAM, CPU, GPU/VRAM, backend), then scores every model in its catalog across four dimensions: memory fit, estimated speed, quality, and context. Speed estimates come from a memory-bandwidth model grounded in runtime sampling and real community measurements — and every estimate ships its inputs, so llmfit info shows exactly what a number assumes and how to verify it on your machine.
Full detail, including the estimation formulas and the model database: How llmfit works.
Contributing
Contributions are welcome, especially new models.
Before submitting a PR
Please run cargo fmt before pushing your changes. Most CI check failures are caused by unformatted code:
cargo fmtGuides for adding models — locally (no rebuild) or to the built-in catalog: Custom models.
Alternatives
If you're looking for a different approach, check out llm-checker -- a Node.js CLI tool with Ollama integration that can pull and benchmark models directly. It takes a more hands-on approach by actually running models on your hardware via Ollama, rather than estimating from specs. Good if you already have Ollama installed and want to test real-world performance. Note that it doesn't support MoE (Mixture-of-Experts) architectures -- all models are treated as dense, so memory estimates for models like Mixtral or DeepSeek-V3 will reflect total parameter count rather than the smaller active subset.
Code signing
llmfit's Windows release binaries are intended to be digitally signed (Authenticode) via SignPath.io, with a free code signing certificate provided by the SignPath Foundation. A given release is signed only when its complete sign-windows job succeeds, including signing, repackaging, artifact replacement, and checksum upload; signing can be skipped or fail while the release still publishes an unsigned artifact. Verify the executable signature before relying on it.
Signing happens automatically in the release pipeline: only artifacts built by GitHub Actions from this repository are submitted for signing, and signing requests are approved by the project maintainer (@AlexsJones).
Code signing policy: see the SignPath Foundation code signing policy and terms.
Privacy: this program will not transfer any information to other networked systems unless specifically requested by the user or the person installing or operating it. llmfit only contacts external services when you explicitly use the corresponding feature (e.g. model downloads, runtime provider queries, or the community leaderboard).
License
MIT
