Alternatives
Products that do what Osaurus – Ollama-Compatible Runtime for Apple Foundation Models does
Osaurus is an open-source local inference runtime for macOS, written in Swift and optimized for Apple Silicon. It lets you run Apple Foundation Models locally — fully accelerated by the Neural Engine — while also exposing OpenAI- and Ollama-compatible endpoints, so you can connect your favorite apps, tools, or clients without any code changes. Key points: * Supports Apple Foundation Models natively * Compatible with OpenAI & Ollama APIs * ~7 MB binary, runs locally (no cloud, no telemetry) * MIT Licensed, open source Project: https://osaurus.ai Source:…
- 1

- 2

- 3OS
Hi HN, I built a specialized inference engine for running 4-bit Gemma 4 26B-A4B-IT on any M-series Mac using about 2 GB of RAM. It is called TurboFieldfare and is written in Swift and Metal. I have always adored on-device AI. It feels like magic that you can run a powerful NN on your Mac or iPhone. So I wanted to push the limits a bit and run a model whose weights don’t fit in memory. The model’s 4-bit quantized weights occupy roughly 14 GB, which makes running it with conventional inference tools almost impossible on an 8 GB or even 16 GB Mac once the OS, applications, and KV cache are…
Jul 2026 · github.com
- 4OR
Hi HN A few folks and I have been working on this project for a couple weeks now. After previously working on the Docker project for a number of years (both on the container runtime and image registry side), the recent rise in open source language models made us think something similar needed to exist for large language models too. While not exactly the same as running linux containers, running LLMs shares quite a few of the same challenges. There are "base layers" (e.g. models like Llama 2), specific configuration to run correctly (parameters, temperature, context window sizes etc). There's…
2023 · github.com
- 5

- 6

- 7

- 8CO
Hey HN, Henry and Roman here - we've been building a cross-platform framework for deploying LLMs, VLMs, Embedding Models and TTS models locally on smartphones. Ollama enables deploying LLMs models locally on laptops and edge severs, Cactus enables deploying on phones. Deploying directly on phones facilitates building AI apps and agents capable of phone use without breaking privacy, supports real-time inference with no latency, we have seen personalised RAG pipelines for users and more. Apple and Google actively went into local AI models recently with the launch of Apple Foundation Frameworks…
2025 · github.com
- 9IM
Hi Hackers, Excited to share a macOS app I've been working on: https://recurse.chat/ for chatting with local AI. While it's amazing that you can run AI models locally quite easily these days (through llama.cpp / llamafile / ollama / llm CLI etc.), I missed feature complete chat interfaces. Tools like LMStudio are super powerful, but there's a learning curve to it. I'd like to hit a middleground of simplicity and customizability for advanced users. Here's what separates RecurseChat out from similar apps: - UX designed for you to use local AI as a daily driver.…
2024 · recurse.chat
- 10WM
We wrote our inference engine on Rust, it is faster than llama cpp in all of the use cases. Your feedback is very welcomed. Written from scratch with idea that you can add support of any kernel and platform.
2025 · github.com
- 11OS
2025 · rlama.dev
- 12

- 13

- 14SO
We built SwiftAI, an open-source Swift library that lets you use Apple’s on-device LLMs when available (Apple opened access in June), and fall back to a cloud model when they aren’t available — all without duplicating code. SwiftAI gives you: - A single, model-agnostic API - An agent/tool loop - Strongly-typed structured outputs - Optional chat state Backstory: We started experimenting with Apple’s local models because they’re free (no API calls), private, and work offline. The problem: not all devices support them (older iPhones, Apple Intelligence disabled, low battery, etc.). That…
2025 · github.com
- 15OO
Hello everyone. This is Yujong from the Hyprnote team (https://github.com/fastrepl/hyprnote). We built OWhisper for 2 reasons: (Also outlined in https://docs.hyprnote.com/owhisper/what-is-this) (1). While working with on-device, realtime speech-to-text, we found there isn't tooling that exists to download / run the model in a practical way. (2). Also, we got frequent requests to provide a way to plug in custom STT endpoints to the Hyprnote desktop app, just like doing it with OpenAI-compatible LLM endpoints. The (2) part is still kind of WIP, but…
2025 · docs.hyprnote.com
- 16

- 17RA
Aug 2026 · github.com
- 18TO
Mar 2026 · github.com
- 19

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. - carloslfu/slotstream
5d ago · github.com
- 20OI
Hi HN! I’m excited to share Orange Intelligence, an open-source alternative to Apple Intelligence for macOS. Orange Intelligence allows you to interact with any text on your macOS system in a more powerful and customizable way. It brings a floating text processor that integrates seamlessly with your workflow. Whether you’re a developer, writer, or productivity enthusiast, this tool can boost your efficiency. Key Features: Floating Text Processor: Trigger a floating window by double-tapping the Option key to process selected text. Run Any Python Function: From basic text manipulations to…
2025 · github.com
- 21

- 22

- 23NI
This lets you talk to local LLMs in Apple Notes. I saw Obsidian Ollama (https://github.com/hinterdupfinger/obsidian-ollama) and thought it was handy, but I'm too lazy to migrate away from the Apple ecosystem, so I quickly hacked this together. I tend to use Notes as a scratchpad for prompts, so it's nice to do some quick inference without leaving the app. Notes doesn't really support plugins so I'm using the macOS accessibility API for reading selections and then stream responses using the clipboard (not ideal but it works).
2024 · smallest.app
- 24
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Refine with a description →