Alternatives
Products that do what Julie Zero – my screen-aware desktop AI that works out of the box does
I’ve posted here before about Julie, an open-source desktop AI assistant I’ve been building in public. The OSS version is local-first and powerful, but it assumes you’re comfortable bringing your own models or API keys. A lot of people told me the same thing: “I just want to install it and have it work.” So I built Julie Zero. Julie Zero is the premium tier that works straight out of the box. No API keys, no setup. Install it and start using it immediately. What Julie Zero does: Sees your screen and understands what you’re looking at in real time Helps across apps by clicking, typing,…
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I've been building computer-use tools for a while, and I quietly launched this about a month ago (122 Stars on GH). I figured it was worth sharing here. Over the last few months, a lot of computer-use agents have come out: Codex, Claude Code, CUA, and others. Most of them seem to work roughly like this: 1. Take a screenshot 2. Have the model predict pixel coordinates 3. Click x,y 4. Take another screenshot 5. Repeat That works, but it's slow, expensive in tokens, and fragile. If the UI shifts a few pixels, things break. And the model still doesn't know what any element actually is. But the…
May 2026 · github.com
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Automate boring work. Extensible and free desktop AI agent.
Aug 2026 · agent-one.dev
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The biggest shift is that Julie now supports fully local LLMs and agentic workflows. It’s no longer limited to answering questions about what’s on screen. It can now run writing and coding agents, and optionally take concrete actions on your computer under supervision. What’s new: - Local LLM support. Julie can now run entirely on-device, - Agentic computer use. I added a computer-use mode with demos showing multi-step actions like clicking, typing, and navigation. - Writing and coding agents. Draft, refactor, and iterate in-place without moving into a separate workspace. - Installers are…
Jan 2026 · tryjulie.vercel.app
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Hey folks, I'm Yuval. I run a tiny startup called Glitter AI. It's just me full-time here, with a couple of freelances to help here and there. A couple of months ago, I went from managing zero requests to hundreds -- overnight (won Product of the day on Product Hunt). As someone who gets VERY easily distracted (maybe you relate), I had to find some sort of way of handling all the chaos if I didn't want to burn out. I came up with a pretty cool automation flow that I thought folks on HN here may be interested in reading about :) So here goes: Most of my interactions come through Intercom.…
2024
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Hi HN, I'm Cristina from CommandBar (YC S20). You've heard how lack of focus kills startups. We were afraid of this too. So for the past 3 years, we built “user assistance” tools for desktop and web apps only. (Stuff like an embedded Copilot trained on your product, cmd+k search, nudges, etc.) It took a lot of self-convincing but we’ve decided to finally launch all of this for mobile today too. In hindsight, we actually regret not doing it sooner. The more we dug into customer feedback, the more we realized how much more pronounced the problems we're solving on desktop are on mweb and native…
2023 · commandbar.com
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Hey HN! I really like local apps for their simplicity and privacy and hate paying Saas bills and I wanted a way to start automating my life with AI so I started building Anything. Anything is built on Tauri so the front end is React and the "backend" is Rust. It's 100% local & 100% doesn't ask you to spin up docker to use. Another core goal of the app is to get away from "package bloat" you see in other general purpose AI oss projects where they have a package.json that is 300 lines long ( more on that later. ) Oh btw I suck at Rust! I learned Rust while building this so the code is _not…
2024 · github.com
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I built an open source desktop AI assistant after getting frustrated with how brittle most tools feel once questions go beyond basic Q and A. The goal was to explore whether an assistant could reliably handle interview style interactions such as system design discussions, multi step coding problems, and deeper follow up questioning without hiding behavior behind a closed SaaS. The assistant supports both cloud and local LLMs, uses a bring your own API key model, and is intentionally opinionated so behavior stays predictable under pressure. Most of the work went into managing context, follow…
Feb 2026 · github.com
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Built this after getting tired of fighting local AI setup (CUDA issues, dependencies, API configs). Goal was to make something that just runs locally without all the overhead. Happy to answer questions or get feedback.
Apr 2026 · store.steampowered.com
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That's a bold claim. But I genuinely feel like I might have actually solved computer use (demo: https://x.com/mdlahfir/status/2088109763783700827?s=20) For context, I've been building agent-desktop (Inspired by agent-browser by Vercel Labs), an automation CLI for desktop apps. It's like Playwright but for desktops, not just native, but for Chromium apps as well. Trust me, yes, Chromium apps whose accessibility tree is dense. MacOS is GA; I'm almost close to launching for Windows and Linux! So, how did I solve it? Basically interoperability. The biggest issue with…
23d ago · github.com
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I recently built a free AI Room Design tool that lets you upload a photo of any room and instantly generate redesigned versions. Multiple styles are available: modern, minimalist, Scandinavian, industrial, and more. It works directly in the browser, no login required, and preserves your room’s layout while applying the new style. Would love to hear feedback on styles, UX, or technical improvements!
Dec 2025 · vdraw.ai
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Hi everyone, We have been developing a platform to enable professionals to build AI assistants to help them through their work. After a few months, we realized people are trying to sell basic functionalities that can be built from scratch in a couple of hours. Due to this, individuals who are not familiar with the current SOTA are misinformed about the potential of generative models. So, we decided to open up some of our most popular templates as standalone tools for free to empower individuals and set a solid standard for what people should expect. We believe the barrier to accessing…
2024 · join.modularmind.app
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Hey guys, I am think of building an open-source version of Perplexity to let devs play around with it. But with all the existing tools available what features would you want? Anything specific? What is missing? Currently working on - 1. Streaming text 2. Citations sources 3. Image and file upload 4. Chat history and storage 5. Temperature and custom instructions If you are in marketing or growth can anyone help me with what to focus on while building such an app? Also here is a very first version. Probably will break and most of the buttons also don’t work, built it in 3 days using Bing and…
2024 · omniplex.vercel.app
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Hi there, looking for feedback on my new project "Featherless.AI" The idea is to allow users to run all the models on hugging face instantly. Via the OpenAI API compatible endpoint. Why? Because its a real chore to download models and spin up GPUs, especially if you want to test multiple models. Not to mention GPUs cost multiple dollars an hour to rent. And if we want more people to use open source AI, we got to make it easier for them to try and play with all of them. So what if instead of spinning up dedicated GPUs per model (which is what every provider is doing) We can startup a LLM…
2024 · featherless.ai
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Hello Hacker News! For the past few months I've been developing Superego: an open-source _personal_ database where you can store everything you want about your life. Literally. Whatever data you have, you can put it in the app. On top of the database, Superego gives you: 1. An AI assistant that you can use to collect and explore your data. 2. A platform to build small personal applications that use that data. -- Try it https://demo.superego.dev/ No login required; runs entirely in your browser¹. Same deal when you download the app (macOS-only for now): everything is local, no…
Oct 2025 · superego.dev
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Hey HN friends, Just launched my first NoCode web app, maching.ai, built with Bubble. Check it out and let me know if you have any questions or suggestions!
2023 · maching.ai
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Hi everyone. Over the weekend, I built a tool for finding contacts using AI. Here's the backstory. My partner and I are working on an agrotech startup – we’re building telematics for agricultural machinery. Most of our sales come through cold outreach: you search for contacts, message them, call, make deals and so on We also do indiehacking, because agrotech is slow and a sometimes boring. At some point, we got tired of manually collecting contacts from the internet, so we built a AI tool for that. It turned out to be super helpful, and we decided to share it with the world. If anyone here…
2025 · leadloom.xyz
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orignally shared this on startup school... i thought id' share it here. i'm using a `nocode communication tool` (a web-based interface... a single browser tab!) for all of these things: 1. landing page — the landing page is the product and i wanted for folks to feel "transported" right into the app without having to walk through a shitty b2b marketing-style content. this is akin to my experience back in the `BBS` days of the mid-90's where you were immediately into the app, community, and tool. no terms of service, no privacy policy. just pure, immediate value. 2. building community — we…
2021
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