Hob
AI
local ai desktop app
SHOW HN2026
How HN took it
4 positive, 8 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 3 critical, out of 15 comments about the project. Thread score +0.14.
Execution: 0 for, 2 againstIdea: 1 for, 0 againstDocs: 1 for, 0 againstPerformance: 0 for, 1 againstPrivacy: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Honest, handwritten, no-frills writeup and repo
From 1 comment
Haven't tried it yet, but I like that you shared your process in such an honest way, and kept it no frills, as in no LLM wall-of-text readme in the repo. Wish we could see that…
mickelsen on HN
Open source MIT with forkable code
From 2 comments
I'm actually building something similar and thank you very much for sharing you gave me a few inspirations. I want mine to integrate seemlesly with an animated Ai companion (it's…
rhedak on HNThank you. Yes please fork that's exactly why I put it out on MIT license :)
pancomplex on HN
Objections
Local models feel too weak to be useful
From 2 comments
The models are really dumb, mainly.
wilg on HNI did not enjoy that there was no way for it to clean up the 18GB of models it installed after I determined it was not really usable for any real work.
wilg on HN
Installs large model downloads with no cleanup option
From 2 comments
I did not enjoy that there was no way for it to clean up the 18GB of models it installed after I determined it was not really usable for any real work.
wilg on HNSorry about that. I’ll make sure it cleans up after itself in the next update. What was the main issue you ran into?
pancomplex on HN
Electron/JS instead of native apps
From 1 comment
Why does it have to be JS? With all this AI, why can't we ship native apps.
_aavaa_ on HN
Requests
Let users change the model installation directory
From 1 comment
Looks great. One thing I am missing is the ability to change the installation directory for the models. For space reasons, I want them to be on a different partition.
laughing_snyder on HN
Support local network LLM servers like Ollama
From 2 comments
Can we configure it to use local models but in LAN? Like Ollama or Strata.
atmanactive on HNYes.
atmanactive on HN
Benchmarks comparing models
From 1 comment
Thank you so much, that's helpful. Do you offer any benchmarks comparing with others?
iqbal1980 on HN
Questions
Which hardware runs which model
From 1 comment
> Automatically finds the best open-weight model for your hardware on first install Do you have examples of what hardware runs what models?
eecks on HN
Which model suits a 16GB M5 Mac for email and marketing
From 1 comment
Interesting, thanks for sharing this. I have some questions? I have a Macbook M5 with 16GB unified memory. What Model would you suggest I use with this. I want something that…
iqbal1980 on HN
Alternatives named
Osaurus
From 2 comments
Definitely check out Osaurus for macOS and Windows. Heavily privacy focused with e2ee iOS and iPadOS tethers.
universenz on HNNo worries. And yes, absolutely. Even the tiniest opportunity to poke around with stuff changes my perspective dramatically. I've picked up lots of stuff this way — just being…
dofm on HN
Open WebUI
From 1 comment
Have you tried Open WebUI? It doesn't determine which model works best for your hardware, but it otherwise has a very large feature set with a large community, and runs offline…
prophesi on HN
LM Studio
From 2 comments
Did you happen to try bionic? https://lmstudio.ai/
vorticalbox on HNShouldn’t be embarrassing to admit. It’s a huge new subject area and it’s completely exhausting to learn. I still feel like a total novice. I have an M1 Max (more memory…
dofm on HN
Orca
From 1 comment
Orca works great.
ajvs on HN
Jan, OpenWork, Chatbox, Lobe
From 1 comment
Thank you! Would love to hear which ones you've used. Working with local files without anything going to the cloud was the main thing I wanted. I tried Jan, OpenWork, Chatbox and…
pancomplex on HN