[HN Gopher] Show HN: macOS GUI for running LLMs locally
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       Show HN: macOS GUI for running LLMs locally
        
       Hello HN,  I've been working on this project for a while, and it
       has been in an "open" beta for some time. I finally believe it's
       ready for its first release.  I hope you like it.  Here are some
       potential questions that may arise:  1. How does it compare to LM
       Studio? It's likely that if you're already using LM Studio, you'll
       continue to do so. This project is designed to be more user-
       friendly.  2. Is it open-source? No, it is not.  3. Does it use any
       open-source libraries? Yes, it uses llama.cpp and a few others, as
       indicated in the license information included with the application.
       4. Why is not using electronjs? Two reasons, I wanted total control
       over the whole tech-stack and second, I wanted to be able to send
       this to my friends over iMessage.  5. Does it support Intel macs?
       It should, but I couldn't test it.  6. Does it support older macOS?
       12.6 is the lowest version at the moment.  7. Is XXX a bug?
       Probably :)
        
       Author : cztomsik
       Score  : 33 points
       Date   : 2023-09-18 19:51 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.avapls.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.avapls.com)
        
       | syntaxing wrote:
       | Do the models run in a docker container? Probably one of my
       | favorite things about Ollama.
        
         | mchiang wrote:
         | disclaimer: I'm one of the maintainers working on Ollama.
         | 
         | I would love to hear how you are using Ollama. One of the
         | upcoming releases will involve an official release of Ollama on
         | Linux with CUDA support of the box. From there, we will publish
         | Ollama Docker images to enable GPU support as well.
        
           | syntaxing wrote:
           | Thank you for your amazing work! I more or less use it as a
           | llama cpp replacement cause I honestly can't figure out a
           | good prompt structure so I get bad results. On my M1 MBP, I
           | use it for stuff that can't go to GPT but can only use upto
           | 13B. I also run a 34B model with CUBLAS enabled on my Linux
           | server by modifying the go files mentioned in one of the
           | issue tickets.
        
       | swyx wrote:
       | very cool. why did you work on it? curious on motivations.
       | congrats on shipping.
        
         | cztomsik wrote:
         | Thanks :) love your podcast BTW.
         | 
         | See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37562287 - I can't
         | tell much more yet, but I feel like LLMs are way more useful
         | than for a chat-bot or a vscode extension.
        
           | swyx wrote:
           | thanks very much! will keep a look out as you build your app.
        
       | alexstore06 wrote:
       | How does this compare to GUIs like llamero
       | (https://github.com/mpociot/llamero) and gpt4all
       | (https://gpt4all.io/index.html)?
        
         | cztomsik wrote:
         | It has playground with prompt saving and (simple) templates,
         | chat saving, builtin model downloader. It's also very small,
         | most people don't care about that, but I do.
        
       | marcellus23 wrote:
       | > What is a language server?
       | 
       | > A language server is a specialized program that processes
       | language-related tasks. This includes activities like text
       | generation, grammar correction, rephrasing, summarization, data
       | extraction, and more.
       | 
       | This confused me initially. I've never heard language server in
       | this context. To me, it has always been in the context of the
       | LSP[0]. But maybe this is a common usage of the term and I've
       | just missed it?
       | 
       | Even if so, it seems like an odd term, since this is a self-
       | contained desktop application and not really a server, right?
       | 
       | 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_Server_Protocol
        
         | duskwuff wrote:
         | [delayed]
        
         | cztomsik wrote:
         | No, you are right, it's a new term I made up. The idea is that
         | I see this as a RAD tool (for non-programmers). So you would
         | have this app open all the time and it would serve different
         | tasks you have prepared before. But that part is not finished
         | yet and it will be limited in the free version.
        
           | CharlesW wrote:
           | > _...it 's a new term I made up._
           | 
           | On the bright side, now that you know what a language server
           | is, you can rename your thing so it can be searched for.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | krm01 wrote:
       | Is there a central place where most downloadable models are
       | available for quick download?
        
         | SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
         | https://huggingface.co/TheBloke
        
         | cztomsik wrote:
         | It works with current version of GGUF models for llama.cpp -
         | you can find them on huggingface, or you can convert them
         | manually.
         | 
         | Only a few download links are baked-in at the moment but
         | whatever *.gguf file you put in your Downloads folder should
         | appear in the dropdown.
        
       | achrono wrote:
       | >Is it open-source? No, it is not.
       | 
       | Why not?
       | 
       | As to Why --> this one actually has a decent GUI and one that's
       | not (visibly) based on a locally running webserver -- so it seems
       | like it's got a shot at getting 100x popular with just a YouTube
       | video (or _gasp_ Tiktok). With the popularity of open-source
       | today I find it a little hard to trust that something is
       | "ensuring maximum privacy" as you say without having the open-
       | source badge (yes, I know I shouldn't be so naive, but no, I am
       | not going to look at network level logs to find out if the app is
       | truly contained to local).
        
         | cztomsik wrote:
         | Fair point, but if this was open-source, would you really go
         | and read all of the source code in several programming
         | languages and also audit all of the dependencies?
         | 
         | IMHO, at some point, it's just about trust.
         | 
         | Now, to be 100% honest, I'd love to release this as OSS, but my
         | current business model is based on freemium. And, sell it as
         | white-label for companies.
         | 
         | EDIT: if you have better idea, I'd love to hear about it.
        
           | achrono wrote:
           | >it's just about trust.
           | 
           | Yes, and a big part of establishing trust is sending the
           | right signals. The risk vs reward differential is way higher
           | for open-source compared to closed source, so all other
           | things being equal I would trust open-source more. Note that
           | all other things are actually _not_ equal in this case, e.g.
           | your closest competition is open-source: Ollama, GPT4All,
           | Llamero.
        
           | lagniappe wrote:
           | I resent having to step in and say something here, but the
           | way you describe things, I effectively don't exist. I read
           | the app code. I write stdlib code. I grokk every line of
           | every library I use. I share alike.
           | 
           | I'm not saying change your ways, just consider being a bit
           | less flippant when you say things like "IMHO, at some point,
           | it's just about trust". As someone who seeks to profit from
           | this, that's about the worst example you can give a
           | prospective user like me.
           | 
           | My face is hot just having to type this.
        
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       (page generated 2023-09-18 23:01 UTC)