Getting Started with Lemonade Server

🍋 Lemonade Server is a server interface that uses the standard Open AI API, allowing applications to integrate with local LLMs. This means that you can easily replace cloud-based LLMs with private and free LLMs that run locally on your own PC's NPU and GPU.

Lemonade Server is available as a standalone tool with a one-click Windows GUI installer.

Once you've installed, we recommend checking out these resources:

Documentation	Description
Supported Applications	Explore applications that work out-of-the-box with Lemonade Server.
Lemonade Server Concepts	Background knowledge about local LLM servers and the OpenAI standard.
lemonade-server CLI Guide	Learn how to manage the server process and install new models using the command-line interface.
Models List	Browse a curated set of LLMs available for serving.
Server Spec	Review all supported OpenAI-compatible and Lemonade-specific API endpoints.
Integration Guide	Step-by-step instructions for integrating Lemonade Server into your own applications.

Note: if you want to develop Lemonade Server itself, you can install from source.

Integrate Lemonade Server with Your Application

Since Lemonade Server implements the standard OpenAI API specification, you can use any OpenAI-compatible client library by configuring it to use http://localhost:8000/api/v1 as the base URL. A table containing official and popular OpenAI clients on different languages is shown below.

Feel free to pick and choose your preferred language.

Python	C++	Java	C#	Node.js	Go	Ruby	Rust	PHP
openai-python	openai-cpp	openai-java	openai-dotnet	openai-node	go-openai	ruby-openai	async-openai	openai-php

Python Client Example

from openai import OpenAI

# Initialize the client to use Lemonade Server
client = OpenAI(
    base_url="http://localhost:8000/api/v1",
    api_key="lemonade"  # required but unused
)

# Create a chat completion
completion = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct-Hybrid",  # or any other available model
    messages=[
        {"role": "user", "content": "What is the capital of France?"}
    ]
)

# Print the response
print(completion.choices[0].message.content)

For more detailed integration instructions, see the Integration Guide.