SilentSwarm or Parallax?¶
Both split a model into layer ranges across unequal machines. Parallax also runs on Macs and has a Windows app. It does not document fine-tuning, which SilentSwarm is built around.
Checked against Parallax's own documentation on 2026-11-05. Projects change, so check their current pages too. "Not documented" means we did not find it in what we read, not that it does not exist. We have not run either project against the other, so this page has no speed comparison.
| Parallax | SilentSwarm | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | A decentralized inference cluster from nodes of varying configuration and location | Serving and fine-tuning one model across mismatched machines you control |
| How a model is split | Contiguous layer ranges balanced by compute and bandwidth, with replicated pipelines | Contiguous layer stages, sized to each card's memory and speed |
| Hardware | GPUs through SGLang or vLLM, Macs through MLX, and a Windows app | Linux with NVIDIA GPUs |
| Fine-tuning | Not documented | LoRA fine-tuning across the same split |
| API and interface | A /v1/chat/completions route and a web interface |
OpenAI-compatible API and a web interface |
| Network | Local network, or public through a relay that receives node and scheduler addresses | Workers connect out to your own coordinator: direct links where possible, its relay otherwise, across buildings and routers |
| Encryption between machines | Not stated in the pages we read | None of its own between machines. A WireGuard mesh encrypts traffic when it is up |
| Licence | Apache-2.0, open source | Source not public, terms agreed during the evaluation |
| Status | Last release 2025-12-02, last commit 2026-07-01 | In pre-evaluation |
Where Parallax is the better choice¶
- Macs and a Windows app, where we run on Linux only.
- Replicated pipelines for more users at once.
- Open source, under Apache-2.0.
Where SilentSwarm fits¶
- You want to fine-tune across the machines that serve.
- You want a coordinator of your own with pools, accounts, scoped API tokens and an audit log.
- You want no public relay involved: ours runs on your coordinator.
SilentSwarm has gaps of its own: no sandbox, and no encryption of its own between machines or at rest. Data and security lists them, and our benchmarks show what it does on old cards.
Sources¶
SilentSwarm is in pre-evaluation. We are looking for companies, institutions and individuals who want to try it on their own machines: Apply for the evaluation.