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Ollama: developer tools for developers and tinkerers

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Ollama helps you build software by this route: run open AI models on your own computer, or in Ollama’s cloud. It is best for developers and tinkerers who want to run open models privately on their own machine. People also use it to work with voice and audio. A free plan is available.

Illustrative preview: a generic illustration of the tool’s job
Illustrative preview

What it does

Ollama downloads and runs open models such as Gemma, gpt-oss and others on your computer, with a command line and a local API. Its documentation describes an OpenAI-compatible API, so existing code can point at a local base URL. Ollama added speech models: Phonon, from Gradium, turns text into speech through an OpenAI-compatible /v1/audio/speech endpoint on Apple Silicon Macs, per Ollama’s blog. Ollama also sells cloud usage for larger models; its pricing page says prompt and response data is never logged or trained on.

Official site:ollama.com.

Editorial note

Ollama runs open AI models on your own computer, with an optional cloud for bigger models. Ollama’s pricing page says running models locally is free, and paid plans start at $20 a month for cloud usage credits.

Who it’s for

Key use cases

What you can do with it

How to use Ollama: step-by-step tutorial

Five to eight steps from the account to a first useful result. Where the official guide names a control, the step uses that name. Where it does not, the step stays general.

  1. Open ollama.com and create an account on the free plan. You can reach a first result before you choose a paid plan.
  2. Install Ollama from ollama.com (speech needs a recent version, per Ollama’s docs).
  3. Run “ollama pull phonon” to download the speech model.
  4. Try it: ollama run phonon "Hello from Ollama."
  5. From code, call the OpenAI-compatible endpoint at http://localhost:11434/v1/audio/speech with model "phonon".
  6. Run “ollama show phonon” to list the available voices.

These steps follow the official guide: Ollama pricing.

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Frequently asked questions

Is Ollama free?

Yes. Ollama’s pricing page says the Free plan is $0, and running models on your own hardware is always unlimited, checked October 24, 2026.

How much does Ollama cloud cost?

Pro is $20 a month or $200 a year, Max is $100 a month and Team is $500 a month, each with monthly usage credits, per Ollama’s pricing page.

Does Ollama do text-to-speech?

Yes. Ollama’s blog says Phonon speech models run on Apple Silicon Macs through an OpenAI-compatible /v1/audio/speech endpoint.

Does Ollama train on my prompts?

Ollama’s pricing page says prompt and response data is never logged or trained on for its cloud models.

Pricing

Prices checked on the official pricing page.

Free

$0

Run models locally, starter cloud usage credits, 1 concurrent cloud request

Pro

$20/month, or $200/year billed annually

$60 of cloud usage credits a month, larger pro models, 3 concurrent requests

Max

$100/month

$300 of cloud usage credits a month, early access to new models, 10 concurrent requests

Team

$500/month

Unlimited users, $1,000 of shared credits a month, centralized billing

Facts

Access
Ongoing free plan
Paid plans from
$0 local
Checked
Category
Category: Development tools (31 in the library).
On the record
Ollama’s Free plan is $0 and includes running models locally, with starter cloud usage credits.
Sources