Jan

By Menlo Research ยท Desktop apps for local LLMs

About Jan

An open-source desktop chat app that runs models offline, keeps conversations as local files and can expose a local API.

Jan is an open-source desktop app for chatting with language models. It downloads open models and runs them on your own hardware, and it can also connect to hosted models through an API key if you choose to add one.

Conversations and settings are stored as files on your computer, which makes them easy to back up or delete. Jan can run a local server so other programs on the same machine can use the loaded model, and it supports extensions for adding features.

It fits people who want a chat app they can inspect and who prefer their history to stay on disk. As with any local app, the models you can run depend on your RAM and graphics memory, so start with a small model and work up.

Details

  • Open source

    Yes

  • Works offline after setup

    Yes

  • Local API server

    Yes

  • Runs on macOS

    Yes

  • Runs on Windows

    Yes

  • Runs on Linux

    Yes

Listing written by LaptopMind, checked 2026-11-04. Report a correction or request removal. Back to desktop apps for local llms.

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