Local LLMs

What it is

Local LLMs are language models that run on your own hardware rather than cloud servers. Using tools like Ollama or LM Studio, you can download open-source models and run them entirely on your machine. Data never leaves your computer.

Why it matters

Local LLMs offer complete privacy, no per-token costs, and work offline. The trade-off is capability (local models are typically less powerful than cloud options) and hardware requirements (you need a decent GPU). For privacy-sensitive use cases or high-volume processing, local models are compelling.