ollama/cmd/bench

Ollama Benchmark Tool

A Go-based command-line tool for benchmarking Ollama models with configurable parameters and multiple output formats.

Features

• Benchmark multiple models in a single run
• Support for both text and image prompts
• Configurable generation parameters (temperature, max tokens, seed, etc.)
• Supports benchstat and CSV output formats
• Detailed performance metrics (prefill, generate, load, total durations)

Building from Source

go build -o ollama-bench bench.go
./ollama-bench -model gpt-oss:20b -epochs 6 -format csv

Using Go Run (without building)

go run bench.go -model gpt-oss:20b -epochs 3

Usage

Basic Example

./ollama-bench -model gemma3 -epochs 6

Benchmark Multiple Models

./ollama-bench -model gemma3,gemma3n -epochs 6 -max-tokens 100 -p "Write me a short story" | tee gemma.bench
benchstat -col /name gemma.bench

With Image Prompt

./ollama-bench -model qwen3-vl -image photo.jpg -epochs 6 -max-tokens 100 -p "Describe this image"

Advanced Example

./ollama-bench -model llama3 -epochs 10 -temperature 0.7 -max-tokens 500 -seed 42 -format csv -output results.csv

Command Line Options

Option	Description	Default
-model	Comma-separated list of models to benchmark	(required)
-epochs	Number of iterations per model	1
-max-tokens	Maximum tokens for model response	0 (unlimited)
-temperature	Temperature parameter	0.0
-seed	Random seed	0 (random)
-timeout	Timeout in seconds	300
-p	Prompt text	"Write a long story."
-image	Image file to include in prompt
-k	Keep-alive duration in seconds	0
-format	Output format (benchstat, csv)	benchstat
-output	Output file for results	"" (stdout)
-v	Verbose mode	false
-debug	Show debug information	false

Output Formats

Markdown Format

The default markdown format is suitable for copying and pasting into a GitHub issue and will look like:

 Model | Step | Count | Duration | nsPerToken | tokensPerSec |
|-------|------|-------|----------|------------|--------------|
| gpt-oss:20b | prefill | 124 | 30.006458ms | 241987.56 | 4132.44 |
| gpt-oss:20b | generate | 200 | 2.646843954s | 13234219.77 | 75.56 |
| gpt-oss:20b | load | 1 | 121.674208ms | - | - |
| gpt-oss:20b | total | 1 | 2.861047625s | - | - |

Benchstat Format

Compatible with Go's benchstat tool for statistical analysis:

BenchmarkModel/name=gpt-oss:20b/step=prefill 128 78125.00 ns/token 12800.00 token/sec
BenchmarkModel/name=gpt-oss:20b/step=generate 512 19531.25 ns/token 51200.00 token/sec
BenchmarkModel/name=gpt-oss:20b/step=load 1 1500000000 ns/request

CSV Format

Machine-readable comma-separated values:

NAME,STEP,COUNT,NS_PER_COUNT,TOKEN_PER_SEC
gpt-oss:20b,prefill,128,78125.00,12800.00
gpt-oss:20b,generate,512,19531.25,51200.00
gpt-oss:20b,load,1,1500000000,0

Metrics Explained

The tool reports four types of metrics for each model:

• prefill: Time spent processing the prompt
• generate: Time spent generating the response
• load: Model loading time (one-time cost)
• total: Total request duration