Elia

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.

Local model choices include Llama 3, Phi 3, Mistral and Gemma. Cloud connections include OpenAI, Anthropic and Gemini, with API credentials required for the services you use. Elia also accepts an OpenAI-compatible API endpoint, so it can connect to a model served by LocalAI on your own server. Using a cloud model sends requests to that provider even though the chat interface and saved history are local.

Conversations stay in a local SQLite database. You can import exported ChatGPT conversations to keep that history alongside chats in Elia. Chats can appear inline beneath your terminal prompt or in a full-screen interface, depending on how much space you want to give the conversation.

You can choose a default model and system prompt, and keep separate entries for the same model under work and personal accounts. Built-in and custom themes change the interface's appearance, while a separate syntax highlighting theme controls how code looks in messages. Elia uses the Apache 2.0 license.