Open-source alternatives to paid AI tools

SkipTheSub / LM Studio

Open-source alternatives to LM Studio

Monthly price for LM Studio: TBD (unverified — never invented). Below: 2 open-source alternatives.

ollama/ollama

What it can do

Get up and running with Kimi, GLM, MiniMax, DeepSeek, gpt-oss, Qwen, Gemma and other models. (GitHub project description) source

What it can't do

TBD

Minimum hardware

TBD

Setup difficulty

TBD

Freshness

not fetched yet

Running cost (per month, roughly)

VPS: TBD — minimum RAM not verified

Local electricity: $ —/mo watts / 1000 × hours/day × 30 × 0.1831 $/kWh source

Open on GitHub

janhq/jan

What it can do

Jan is an open source alternative to ChatGPT that runs 100% offline on your computer. (GitHub project description) source

What it can't do

TBD

Minimum hardware

RAM
8 GB
VRAM
TBD
Runs on
  • mac
  • cpu
Note
8GB RAM for 3B models on macOS
source

Setup difficulty

TBD

Freshness

not fetched yet

Running cost (per month, roughly)

VPS: $48/mo (assumes DigitalOcean Basic Droplet with 8 GB RAM) source

Local electricity: $ —/mo watts / 1000 × hours/day × 30 × 0.1831 $/kWh source

Open on GitHub

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