Local AI Chat Apps and Assistants

Pooled runs a single open model across browser tabs on laptops, desktops and phones, combining their memory when the model won't fit on one device. It's for people who want local AI chat or a coding assistant using hardware they already have. It's open source under the MIT license and requires no account or per-device installation.

Tel-Agent is a self-hosted AI receptionist for businesses that want phone calls and customer messages handled in one place. It runs on your own hardware and keeps recordings and searchable transcripts on your machine. It's free and open source under the AGPL-3.0 license.

SurfSense is an open-source NotebookLM alternative that turns documents into cited answers and editable deliverables on your computer. It's a desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux, aimed at people working with confidential files, research or study material. You don't need an account.

AIRI is a self-hosted AI companion for people who want a virtual character they can talk to and play games with. Inspired by Neuro-sama, it combines real-time voice conversation with game integrations for Minecraft and Factorio. The project is in early development; Factorio support is a work in progress with a proof of concept. It's open source under the MIT license.

Jan gives people a ChatGPT-style chat interface for AI models running on their own computer. It's free and available for Windows, macOS and Linux. Local chats work offline, with the model and conversation kept on your machine. You can also use cloud models when you want access to a hosted provider.

OpenClaw is a self-hosted AI assistant that connects your own computer to the messaging services you already use. It's for people who want a personal assistant on their laptop, or teams that want to run a shared assistant on their own hardware. The project is open source under the MIT license.

AnythingLLM is an open source AI assistant for people who want to chat with their documents and use AI agents on their own hardware. The desktop app runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, while a Docker deployment supports multiple users on a self-hosted server. No account is required for the desktop app.

Onyx is an AI search and chat platform for teams whose information is spread across workplace apps. It indexes company knowledge so employees can ask questions across sources and get answers grounded in relevant documents. Teams can deploy it in their own cloud or on bare metal, including an air-gapped environment.

LibreChat is a self-hosted ChatGPT alternative for people and teams that want local models and cloud AI services in one chat interface. It runs on a server you control and is open source under the MIT license. You can switch models without moving to a separate chat app.

Noema is a private local AI assistant for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Vision Pro. It's for people who want to chat with models and work with their own files on Apple hardware without depending on a cloud service. Local chats can stay on your device, and file retrieval runs there too.

LM Studio is a desktop application for downloading and running language models on macOS, Windows and Linux. You can search for models, manage downloads and chat with them through the app. Downloaded models can run offline, including document chat that uses files on your computer.

llama.cpp runs language models on your own hardware and can serve them from a machine you control. It’s an MIT-licensed, open source inference engine for people building local AI apps, running a private model server, or using a model directly from the command line. It supports vision-language models too.

Hermes Agent is a self-hosted AI agent from Nous Research for people who want an assistant that remembers past work and develops reusable skills. It creates skills after complex tasks, revises them through use, and searches earlier conversations to recover context across sessions. The project is open source under the MIT license.

Cherry Studio is a free, open source desktop app for people who use several AI models and want their conversations in one place. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. Chats, settings and knowledge base files are stored on your device.

Open WebUI gives individuals and teams a self-hosted place to chat with local LLMs and cloud models. It runs on your own computer or server, including through Docker, and can work entirely offline with local models.

Goose is a general-purpose AI agent that runs on your computer. It suits people who want an agent for coding, research, writing, automation, or data analysis, without committing to one model provider. The desktop app runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux; there's also a CLI for terminal work and an API for use in other software.

Unsloth brings model training and everyday AI use into a desktop app for people who want to run models on their own hardware. Its no-code interface covers chat, fine-tuning and media generation on macOS, Windows and Linux. The Unsloth software is open source under Apache 2.0.

Off Grid AI runs language models on iOS, Android, macOS, Windows and Linux. You can chat, analyze documents and generate images on your own hardware. The mobile app uses the MIT license, while the desktop app uses AGPL.

OpenWhispr is a free, MIT-licensed dictation and meeting transcription app for people who want voice input across their apps with control over where processing happens. It's available on macOS, Windows, Linux and iOS. Local transcription works offline and keeps audio on your device; optional cloud transcription sends audio to the selected provider, whose retention policies apply.

Locally AI is a native app for running language and vision models on recent iPhones, iPads, and Macs. It's for people who want a private AI assistant on their own device, with text, image processing, and voice conversations available without cloud processing. Once a model is downloaded, it works offline and doesn't require an account.

RecurseChat is a paid Mac app for people who want to chat with AI and ask questions about their files on their own computer. It runs local LLMs without an internet connection or a server, keeping local conversations on the device. The same app also connects to Claude and ChatGPT, so you can choose local processing or a cloud provider.

Perfect Memory AI keeps a searchable record of what you've seen on your screen and heard in meetings on Mac and Windows. It's for people who need to find a page, presentation or conversation again without remembering which app held it. Recordings stay on your device, and search returns material you've actually seen or heard.

Raycast is a proprietary desktop launcher that lets you use models running through Ollama within its AI assistant. It's for people who want private, offline conversations while keeping access to Raycast's chat and AI commands. Local model requests go directly to Ollama on your computer, without sending your conversations to Raycast or third parties. Local model access is paid.

ChatGPTBox is a free, open-source browser extension for people who want AI help with the pages they read, search results and selected text. It works in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari, with mobile support too. You can connect it to Ollama or a self-hosted model through its custom model mode, or use cloud services such as ChatGPT, Claude, Moonshot and Azure.

Vanna is a self-hosted Python framework for building AI agents that answer database questions in plain language. It's for teams adding chat to analytics products or internal data tools, especially when each user needs different access to the data. The project is archived and no longer maintained. Its open-source code uses the MIT license.

OpenAgent is a self-hosted personal AI assistant that combines document search with agents that can act on your behalf. It's for people who want an assistant on their own computer or server, and teams building agents around their documents and workflows. It runs natively on Windows, macOS and Linux as a single executable. It's free and open source under Apache 2.0.

h2oGPT is a self-hosted ChatGPT alternative for people who want to chat with local models and ask questions about their own documents. The project is archived and no longer maintained. It's open source under Apache 2.0, with support for Linux, macOS, Windows and Docker.

Discord Ollama Bot connects locally hosted language models to Discord, so a community can use an AI assistant inside its existing chat server. It's for server owners who want to choose and host the models themselves while keeping Discord as the interface. Model inference runs on your hardware, but conversations still pass through Discord, so this isn't a fully offline chat app.

Raycast Ollama brings Ollama models into Raycast on macOS and Windows, for people who want AI chat and text assistance within their desktop launcher. It connects to Ollama on your own machine or a remote server you choose. The extension is open source under the MIT license, and local inference doesn't require an Ollama API key.

Lumos is a Chrome extension for asking questions about web pages using models running on your own machine. It's for readers working through long discussions, product reviews, news articles or technical documentation who want summaries and answers tied to the material they're reading. Ollama handles inference locally, without a remote AI server.

ollama-ui is a small browser interface for people who run models through Ollama and want a graphical place to chat. You can serve the interface locally and open it in a browser, or use the Chrome extension. It's open source under the MIT license.

RAGapp is a self-hosted app for teams that want an AI assistant using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) on their own infrastructure. It pairs a browser chat interface with an admin interface for configuring the assistant, taking an approach similar to OpenAI's custom GPTs. It's open source under the Apache 2.0 license.

Scira is an AI search engine for people who want answers backed by sources and control over the application they use for research. It has a hosted website, and you can self-host the open-source application under AGPL-3.0. Its live search relies on internet access and external services; self-hosting doesn't make that research offline.

Kerlig is a paid AI writing assistant for Mac that works with text in the apps you already use. It's aimed at people writing client emails, Slack replies and Jira tickets who want help editing and drafting without moving everything into a browser chat. It runs on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs with macOS 12 or later.

Wingman-AI is a self-hosted AI agent platform for work that needs ongoing context and several agents with different roles. It suits developers and teams handling research, support, or recurring operations alongside coding tasks. A lead agent can delegate work to specialized subagents, each with its own workspace and session history.

BrainSoup is a proprietary native Windows app for people who want custom AI agents to handle work on their desktop. You can give agents distinct roles and access to different data, then have them collaborate in shared chat rooms. Natural-language conversations guide their tasks and automations.