---
title: "LM Studio API"
source: "https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/rest"
author:
published:
created: 2026-04-30
description: "LM Studio's REST API for local inference and model management"
tags:
  - "clippings"
---
LM Studio offers a powerful REST API with first-class support for local inference and model management. In addition to our native API, we provide OpenAI-compatible endpoints ([learn more](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/openai-compat)) and Anthropic-compatible endpoints ([learn more](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/anthropic-compat)).

## What's new

Previously, there was a [v0 REST API](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/rest/endpoints). With LM Studio 0.4.0, we have officially released our native v1 REST API at `/api/v1/*` endpoints and recommend using it.

The v1 REST API includes enhanced features such as:

- [MCP via API](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/core/mcp)
- [Stateful chats](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/rest/stateful-chats)
- [Authentication](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/core/authentication) configuration with API tokens
- Model [download](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/rest/download), [load](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/rest/load) and [unload](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/rest/unload) endpoints

## Supported endpoints

The following endpoints are available in LM Studio's v1 REST API.

| Endpoint | Method | Docs |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `/api/v1/chat` | POST | [Chat](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/rest/chat) |
| `/api/v1/models` | GET | [List Models](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/rest/list) |
| `/api/v1/models/load` | POST | [Load](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/rest/load) |
| `/api/v1/models/unload` | POST | [Unload](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/rest/unload) |
| `/api/v1/models/download` | POST | [Download](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/rest/download) |
| `/api/v1/models/download/status` | GET | [Download Status](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/rest/download-status) |

## Inference endpoint comparison

The table below compares the features of LM Studio's `/api/v1/chat` endpoint with OpenAI-compatible and Anthropic-compatible inference endpoints.

| Feature | [`/api/v1/chat`](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/rest/chat) | [`/v1/responses`](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/openai-compat/responses) | [`/v1/chat/completions`](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/openai-compat/chat-completions) | [`/v1/messages`](https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer/anthropic-compat/messages) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Streaming | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Stateful chat | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Remote MCPs | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| MCPs you have in LM Studio | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Custom tools | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Include assistant messages in the request | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Model load streaming events | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Prompt processing streaming events | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Specify context length in the request | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |

---

Please report bugs by opening an issue on [Github](https://github.com/lmstudio-ai/lmstudio-bug-tracker/issues).