Xinference
One-command serving for LLM, speech, and multimodal models.
About
Xinference (Xorbits Inference) is a model-serving library for deploying language, speech-recognition, and multimodal models with a single command — locally, on-prem, or in the cloud — behind OpenAI-compatible endpoints. v4.0 added a multi-engine backend (Xavier), heterogeneous prefill/decode, runtime model reconfiguration, and agent-native serving via Xagent (dynamic planning, tool use, multi-step reasoning). 9.6k stars, Apache-2.0, with an enterprise offering at xinference.co. Smaller ecosystem than vLLM/Ollama/LMDeploy, but the easiest path from 'model file' to 'API endpoint' for heterogeneous model types.
What it can do
- **One-command serving**: LLMs, speech, and multimodal models as APIs
- **OpenAI-compatible**: drop-in endpoint for existing clients
- **Multi-engine**: Xavier backend, heterogeneous prefill/decode (v4.0)
- **Agent-native**: Xagent integration for tool-using model serving
- **Local or cloud**: laptop to cluster deployment
- **Web UI**: point-and-click model management
Setup
```bash
pip install xinference
xinference-local # web UI + API at localhost
```
Then launch a model from the UI or CLI (xinference launch ...) and call it via the OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Docs: inference.readthedocs.io.
Prerequisites
Python 3.9+. GPU recommended for larger models (CPU works for small ones).
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 8/10
Scored 8/10 (verified tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: 9,608 GitHub stars (log-scaled vs catalog peers); blended with ~4,440 monthly package downloads; last push 1d ago; 29 releases/12mo; 31 open issues. Manual review: one-command LLM/speech/multimodal serving (v4.0 Xavier, P/D, Xagent); 9.6k stars; smaller ecosystem than vLLM/Ollama; modest PyPI traction. License: Apache-2.0.
★ 9,608 GitHub stars
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 7.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 9.9/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 10.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 8.0/10
- · 9,608 GitHub stars (log-scaled vs catalog peers)
- · blended with ~4,440 monthly package downloads
- · last push 1d ago; 29 releases/12mo; 31 open issues
- · manual review: one-command LLM/speech/multimodal serving (v4.0 Xavier, P/D, Xagent); 9.6k stars; smaller ecosystem than vLLM/Ollama; modest PyPI traction
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.