GoKawiilMichael and I first met in college, where we started our first company, Kitematic, which made Docker dead-simple to run. In 2015, it was acquired by Docker. There, our work became Docker Desktop, launched in 2016 and now used by over ten million developers around the world.
Ten years later, we’re back, building Ollama — the easiest way for developers to get up and running with open models. Beyond our wildest dreams, Ollama has quickly become the leading platform to access open models, serving 8.9 million developers who, just like us, believe that AI should be yours to build, run, and make your own.
The personal computer moment for AI
Computing has been here before: the personal computer took the machine out of the mainframe room and put it on your desk — yours to own, customize, and build with. Open models are now enabling that moment for AI.
A few years ago we watched as powerful new open models emerged. They were freely available to download, but it was hard to get them working. The power was there, but it wasn’t unlocked for developers who wanted to consume them the way they could access proprietary models behind an API.
So we got to work. With our team we shipped Ollama, an app you could download on your computer to get up and running with the latest open models in a single command, and build on them via a simple API. Ollama quickly became the place where developers could feel at home to discover the latest open models and learn how to put them to work.
With Ollama, running an open model became as easy as running any other piece of software: no permission, API key, or expensive server hardware required. Your model. Your machine. Your data.
AI that you own: personal & private
We built Ollama around three principles that matter most to our customers and community:
Ownership. Open models are yours to keep, customize, and optimize. You’re never locked out of the models your agent or app depends on, and you have complete freedom to change them.
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