Run AI on your own machine. Pick your hardware, install one tool, chat with a model that fits — this page gets a beginner there in about 15 minutes.
Backstory · Follow updates on X
Localist is a beginner-first guide, not another giant tool list. You start from the machine you already own, follow one guide, and skip the other 50 options. And it doesn't rot: a pipeline — not vibes — refreshes the Fresh updates section every morning, and we review and prune stale recommendations instead of hoarding them.
Jump to: Start here · The essentials · Fresh updates · Glossary · Contributing
Not sure what hardware you have? → Work it out in two questions · Something not working? → Troubleshooting
Don't read everything. Find your row, follow one guide, and you'll be chatting with a local model in under 15 minutes.
| I have… | Your guide |
|---|---|
| An NVIDIA GPU (any GeForce RTX) | NVIDIA GPU path |
| A Mac with Apple Silicon (M-series) | Mac path |
| An AMD GPU (Radeon RX) | AMD GPU path |
| Just a laptop / no GPU | CPU-only path |
| A mini PC or home server | CPU-only path — or the NVIDIA path if it has a GPU |
| No idea what I have | Start here |
Everything here can run locally; many paths work offline after setup, and your prompts stay on your machine unless you connect a cloud service.
Stuck partway? Troubleshooting covers the handful of things that actually go wrong — including "where do I type this command?", how to stop the chat, and how to start it again tomorrow.
One opinionated pick per category. Alternatives are inside each entry — but if you're new, just take the pick and move on.
Which tool first? Want clicks? Start with LM Studio. Comfortable with one command? Start with Ollama. You do not need both.
| Category | Our pick | Why this one |
|---|---|---|
| Model runner | Ollama | One command to install, one to run a model. The de-facto beginner standard. |
| Desktop app | LM Studio | Point-and-click everything: browse, download, and chat with models. No terminal needed. |
| Web UI | Open WebUI | ChatGPT-style interface on top of Ollama. Multi-user, chat with your documents, voice. |
| Chat models | Qwen3 family | Strong at every size, tiny to huge. Which size fits you → choosing models. |
| Coding models | Qwen Coder | Same idea, meaningfully better at code. Pairs with the coding agent below. |
| Coding agent | OpenCode | Most popular open-source coding agent; points at your local models. |
| Image generation | ComfyUI | Node-based, runs every major open image model. Steeper curve, unmatched power. |
| Chat with your docs | AnythingLLM | Point it at a folder and a local model — done. |
| Speech-to-text | whisper.cpp | Fast local transcription on any hardware. |
| Text-to-speech | Piper | Fast, natural offline voices — runs even on a Raspberry Pi. |
When you outgrow beginner tools, llama.cpp is the engine worth learning — it's what most of the tools above are built on.
The full curated set (with licenses, hardware fit, and honest caveats) lives in
data/curated.yml — it's the single source of truth these
picks come from.
New projects and tool releases from the past week, refreshed daily by the pipeline. Pipeline-surfaced projects are not curated recommendations. Start with the Essentials table above if you want the trusted beginner picks.
Updated 2026-09-03
🆕 New & active projects
- EthanYoQ/AI-Novel-Writer — AI 小说创作软件：把灵感、角色、世界观、大纲、章节写作、审稿和修稿组织成可控流程；提供 Windows/macOS 桌面版、Ollama 与 DSH 插件预览。 · ⭐ 517
- carloslfu/slotstream — Run Qwen3.8-Flash-Next (125B MoE, 104 GB at 4-bit) on Macs with a fraction of that RAM by streaming experts from SSD. MLX + Swift, Ollama-compatible API. · ⭐ 196
- DDGTESTDEV-IONICS/ollama-gui-simple — 'ollama gui windows' — A minimal local-LLM chat front-end: pick model, chat, switch — nothing else. Free, open community project for Windows. · ⭐ 150
- nooour2/buzz-transcriber-alt — 'buzz transcriber download' — A guide to Buzz-class local transcribers plus a companion concept repo. Free, open community project for Windows. · ⭐ 150
- claudiosequeida81-maker/whisper-gui-windows — 'whisper gui windows' — A local transcription front-end: audio in, subtitles out, nothing leaves the PC. Free, open community project for Windows. · ⭐ 150
📦 Tool releases
- LM Studio 1.1.0
- Ollama v0.33.2 — Ollama's app now follows the system appearance again, restoring dark mode support Fixed the macOS app to properly hand off to an already-running instance instead of starting a second one
- KoboldCpp v1.120 — Minor fix to assistant gen prefills being triggered incorrectly Fixed a bug where failsafe mode was incorrectly selected
- Open WebUI v0.11.2 — Added 🖼️ Richer previews for terminal files. Word documents and slide decks produced in the terminal are now previewed as the finished document rather than an approximation, and every document
- Open WebUI v0.11.3 — Added ♿ Accessibility mode reaches the menus. Accessibility mode now marks the menu entry you are pointing at and the model already chosen with a stronger background, across the dropdown menus,
- LM Studio 1.1.1
Don't know what hardware you have? Start here works it out in two questions, and tells you what a local model will and won't do well before you spend time on it.
The glossary explains every term you'll bump into — GGUF, quantization, weights, context window, VRAM, tokens/sec — in plain words. And choosing models answers the #1 question: which model size actually fits my machine?
When something doesn't work, troubleshooting is organised by what you see on screen — not by what went wrong underneath.
Found a great tool? Spotted a dead project? Open an issue — suggest a tool · report a stale entry. If a link, download, or command looks unsafe or compromised, report it privately through SECURITY.md instead of a public issue. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the ground rules.