Local AI Chat Apps and Assistants

ChatWise is a desktop chat app for connecting different model providers through one interface. It stores data locally; model processing follows the provider you choose. Its official documentation includes Ollama for models running on your own machine, alongside cloud providers connected with your API keys.

Brave Leo is an AI assistant built into the Brave browser, with Bring Your Own Model support for people who want to use their own local or remote models while browsing. It can work with third-party APIs as well as Brave's hosted model choices. The browser runs on macOS, Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS.

OpenLLM is a self-hosted LLM server for developers who want to connect their applications to models running on their own hardware or servers. Its OpenAI-compatible API works with clients built for that interface, including the OpenAI Python client and LlamaIndex. The project is open source under the Apache License 2.0.

SmolChat is an Android app for people who want to chat with language models running on their own phone. It uses llama.cpp to run GGUF models on-device, including small language models. Inference stays on your device.

nanochat is an MIT-licensed toolkit for training your own LLM and chatting with it on hardware you control. It's aimed at researchers and developers who want to study or modify the full training pipeline, with a small Python codebase built on PyTorch.

Witsy is an AGPL-3.0 desktop AI assistant for macOS, Windows and Linux that connects MCP tools to local and cloud models. It's for people who want document chat, writing help and voice features in one app, with a choice of where their models run.

LangBot is a self-hosted AI agent platform for teams that want bots in the messaging apps their customers, coworkers or communities already use. It connects Slack, Discord, Telegram, WeChat and other chat services to models and AI workflows, with a browser dashboard for managing bots across platforms.

Enconvo is a native AI assistant and agent for Mac that can use your screen and selected text as context, then work inside your apps. It's for people who want help with writing, research and everyday tasks alongside the app they're using. A sidebar keeps the agent beside the current app, while text selection tools give quick access to editing and translation.

llmcord is a self-hosted Discord bot for people who want to share LLM conversations with friends or a community. You can run the Python bot on your own machine or server, including through Docker, and connect it to local models or cloud providers. It's open source under the MIT license.

Reins is an open-source chat app for people using self-hosted LLMs through Ollama. It runs on iOS, Android, macOS, Linux and Windows, giving Ollama users a mobile and desktop interface for experimenting with models. Reins is the client; Ollama provides the model backend.

BoltAI is a native Mac app for people who want local LLMs and cloud AI services in the same workspace. It runs on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs and suits coding, writing, research and document analysis. The interface uses SwiftUI and AppKit.

Nanobrowser is an open-source AI agent that automates web tasks inside Chrome or Edge. It's for people who want to delegate repetitive browsing or research while choosing which models handle the work. The extension runs in your browser and is an alternative to OpenAI Operator, with an Apache 2.0 license.

Langchain-Chatchat is a self-hosted application for asking questions about your own documents and using AI agents. It focuses on Chinese-language use and open models, with a fully offline setup that can keep documents and model processing on your hardware. Its code is open source under Apache 2.0.

ChatOllama is an AI agent app whose main interface is a command-line client running on your machine. It's for people who want an agent to work with local files while choosing between models served by Ollama and hosted services. The repository license modifies Apache 2.0: commercial hosting and multi-tenant services require authorization, and frontend branding must remain intact.

AstrBot brings AI assistants into messaging apps such as Telegram, Discord, Slack, QQ and WeCom. It's an open source platform under AGPL-3.0 for people building personal companions, customer support bots or team automation. You can run it on your own computer or server, including through Docker, or use its desktop app for browser-style chat.

Cheshire Cat is a self-hosted Python framework for people learning how AI agents work or building custom assistants for research and creative projects. It pairs a local web chat interface with an API, so you can test an agent in conversation and use it inside another application. It's open source under GPL-3.0.

Mattermost Agents brings AI assistants into a self-hosted Mattermost workspace, with a choice of local models or cloud providers. It's for teams that want help with long discussions and meeting recordings while controlling where their collaboration data goes. The plugin is open source under Apache 2.0.

Distributed Llama runs a local LLM across several computers, sharing both the computation and the model's memory use. It's for people who want to use their own networked hardware for inference rather than keep the entire workload on one machine. The C++ project is open source under the MIT license.

Oterm is a terminal chat client for people who want to use LLMs without leaving their terminal. It connects to Ollama for local models and to cloud providers including OpenAI and Anthropic. Your choice of provider determines where the model runs.

Leon is a self-hosted personal AI assistant for Linux, macOS and Windows. The project focuses on the 2.0 Developer Preview on its develop branch. Its MIT-licensed runtime combines tools, context and memory with a local web interface.

localGPT is a self-hosted AI document chat app for people who want to question and summarise files on their own hardware. Its local Ollama setup keeps documents and conversations on your machine. Answers include source passages, so you can check what the model used.

LLM is an Apache-2.0 command-line tool and Python library for sending prompts to local models and remote APIs. Local model support comes through plugins; cloud providers require their own API access. It can also connect to an arbitrary OpenAI-compatible Chat Completions endpoint, including LM Studio.

Maid is an Android AI chat app for people who want to run models on their phone and access remote models in the same app. It runs GGUF models locally through llama.cpp without an internet connection. It's open source under the MIT license, with no ads or telemetry.

text-generation-webui, also called TextGen, runs language models on your own hardware through a desktop app or a self-hosted browser interface. It's for people who want private chat and writing tools, and developers who need a local model API. It works offline without telemetry; web search and page fetching use the internet.

Alpaca is an open source AI chat client for people who want to run models on their own device. It uses Ollama to download and manage local models, then lets you chat without an internet connection. Conversations stay on your device in SQLite files, and local models have no direct internet access.

Typebot is a visual chatbot builder you can host on your own server or use through its managed cloud service. It's for businesses building conversational forms and chatbots for websites, mobile apps, and WhatsApp, with developers able to extend flows through APIs and JavaScript. The project uses Fair Source licensing.

kotaemon is a self-hosted document chat app for people who want to ask questions across their files and check where the answers came from. It runs in a browser on Windows, macOS or Linux, with Docker also supported. The project uses the Apache 2.0 license.

KoboldCpp pairs local model inference with a browser interface built for chat, creative writing and roleplay. A fork of llama.cpp, it bundles KoboldAI Lite with tools for keeping character details and story context alongside your conversations. It's open source under AGPL-3.0.

aichat brings Ollama and cloud AI services into the same terminal interface for developers and people who work at the command line. It runs locally on macOS, Linux and Windows, with Android support through Termux. Model processing happens through the backend you choose: Ollama supports local models, while providers such as OpenAI, Claude and Gemini process requests in the cloud.

PocketPal AI is an open source assistant for people who want to run language models on a phone or tablet. It works on iOS, iPadOS and Android. Once you've downloaded a model, you can chat offline without an account, and your prompts, replies and documents stay on your device. The app is licensed under MIT.

SillyTavern is a locally installed LLM frontend for AI hobbyists who want detailed control over character chats and prompts. It builds on TavernAI as an independently developed fork and brings text models, image generation and voice into one interface. It's open source under AGPL-3.0.

Inbox Zero is an AI email assistant you can self-host with Docker or use as a hosted service. It's for people handling busy Gmail, Google Workspace, or Microsoft Outlook inboxes who want help sorting mail and preparing replies. It works alongside your existing email client.

Chatbox is an AI chat client for people who want local models and cloud providers in the same app. It connects to Ollama for local LLM use and supports GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok and DeepSeek with your own API keys. Chatbox also offers its own hosted model service.

Nextcloud Assistant brings AI into Nextcloud Hub's documents, email, chat and calendar. It's for teams that want help with shared work while choosing where AI processing happens. With an on-premises model, data stays on your server. The app is open source under AGPL-3.0.

Elia is an open source terminal chat client for people who prefer a keyboard-focused interface to a browser chat app. It connects to local LLMs through Ollama or LocalAI and also works with hosted models such as ChatGPT and Claude. The interface runs on your machine; where prompts go depends on the model you choose.

Letta is an open-source platform for AI agents that retain memory across conversations and use experience to improve over time. Formerly called MemGPT, it's for people building or using assistants that need continuity beyond a single chat. Agents can run locally or on a self-hosted server.