Apps
If you would rather not use a terminal, one of these will get you talking to a local model in a couple of clicks. Everything here runs the model on your device.
LM Studio
FreeThe desktop app that made downloading and chatting with local models feel finished.
Discovering, downloading and chatting with local models — including MLX builds — with no terminal at all.
Enchanted
FreeA native SwiftUI chat client that only talks to your own server.
A polished, private front end for models you're already serving from your Mac.
fullmoon
FreeA minimal, offline-first chat app built directly on MLX.
Chatting with small models fully on-device: no server, no account, no network call.
Draw Things
FreeThe app that got image generation running smoothly on iPhones first.
Local image generation with SD, SDXL and Flux-class models on Apple silicon.
MacWhisper
Free tier, paid ProThe app most people mean when they say 'just use Whisper'.
Drag-and-drop audio and video transcription and translation, entirely on-device.
Private LLM
One-time purchaseA quantization-focused chat app that sells privacy, not features.
Running quantized open models fully offline across iPhone, iPad and Mac from one app.
FreeChat
FreeA native Mac chat window with a model already inside it.
The shortest path from download to first local answer, with no configuration.
MindMac
PaidA native client for cloud APIs and local backends in the same window.
Switching between local and cloud models from one native app instead of a browser tab.
MLXChatExample
FreeThe official sample app, which is also a perfectly good chat client.
Trying MLX chat inference natively, and reading the source that makes it work.
Sherpa
FreeA small native app built to show what MLX speed feels like.
Downloading and running MLX community models with no Python environment involved.