Disclosure: we make Pinku, the app ranked first here. Everything we say about the other apps comes from their own App Store pages, and we say plainly where they beat us. Prices are from the US App Store on 7 October 2026.
Every app here does the same basic thing: it downloads an open language model to your iPhone or Mac and runs it there. Once the model is on the device, your questions are answered without a network connection and without an account. What differs is which models you can run, what you pay, and how much else the app does.
The ranking
- Pinku: best overall for private, offline chat on iPhone, iPad and Mac.
- Locally AI by LM Studio: best free all-rounder.
- Private LLM: best pay-once app, with Siri and bigger models.
- Enclave: best if you also want cloud models.
- PocketPal AI: best for running any model you find.
- Privacy AI: best for agents and tools.
Why Pinku is #1
- On-device: the model is downloaded once, then every answer is generated on your iPhone, iPad or Mac, with no connection.
- No account and no server. Its App Store privacy label reads Data Not Collected.
- No data leaves the device, and there is no cloud mode to switch on by mistake.
- Free to start; Pinku Pro is a one-time $9.99 purchase. No subscription.
- The interface in 8 languages: English, Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Russian.
- A memory check before loading: models too big for your device are hidden, and if one will not fit Pinku warns you and keeps the current model instead of crashing.
The six apps at a glance
| Price (US) | Mac App Store | Models | Privacy label | Rating (US) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Pinku (ours) | Free; Pinku Pro $9.99 one-time | Yes | 12 curated models on Apple MLX, 0.34 to 4.7 GB | Data Not Collected | 4.7 · 12 |
| 2. Locally AI by LM Studio | Free | Yes | Llama, Gemma, Qwen, DeepSeek and more, on Apple MLX | Data Not Collected | 4.7 · 1,740 |
| 3. Private LLM | $4.99 upfront | Yes | Llama, Gemma, Qwen, Phi, Mistral and more, up to 14B | Data Not Collected | 4.2 · 734 |
| 4. Enclave | Free; Pro $9.99 | Not listed | Hundreds of open models; Pro adds cloud models | Data Not Linked to You | 4.7 · 1,087 |
| 5. PocketPal AI | Free, open source | Not listed | Any GGUF model from Hugging Face | Data Not Collected | 4.1 · 160 |
| 6. Privacy AI | Free; subscription for cloud features | Not listed | GGUF and MLX models, Apple's models, optional cloud providers | Data Used to Track You | 4.8 · 20 |
“Not listed” means we found no Mac App Store listing; iPhone and iPad apps can still run on many Apple silicon Macs. Privacy labels are what each developer declares on the App Store; Apple does not verify them. Ratings are from Apple's public lookup API on 7 October 2026.
1. Pinku: private by construction
Pinku runs twelve curated open models (Gemma 3, Gemma 3n, Llama 3.2, Qwen3, DeepSeek-R1 distills, SmolLM3 and LFM2) on iPhone, iPad and Mac with Apple MLX. There is no account and no server. Before loading a model it checks the memory actually free on the device; if the model does not fit, it warns you and keeps the current one loaded instead of crashing. You can regenerate an answer, edit a message and rerun from it, and share a message or a whole conversation. The interface is in English, Spanish, German, French, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Russian.
It is free to download, and the six models up to 1 GB, including the default Gemma 3 1B, work without paying. Pinku Pro is an optional one-time purchase ($9.99) that adds the six larger models, custom instructions, voice dictation recognised on the device and read aloud. There is no subscription.
Where others beat it: Pinku does not read images or documents, does not browse Hugging Face for arbitrary models, has no cloud option and no agent tools, and does not sync chats between your devices. It also has far fewer ratings than Locally AI, Enclave or Private LLM.
2. Locally AI by LM Studio: the safe free pick
Made by the team behind LM Studio, the desktop app many people already use to run models on a computer. It is free, needs no login, runs models with Apple's MLX framework, and its page says it can analyse images as well as text. It has the most ratings of any app here, and it is on iPhone, iPad and Mac. If you want one free app and do not want to think about it, it is an excellent choice.
3. Private LLM: pay once, use Siri
The only app here you pay for before downloading: $4.99, once, with Family Sharing, on iPhone, iPad and Mac. It uses its own quantisation (OmniQuant), offers larger models than most, up to 14B parameters, and integrates with Siri and Shortcuts. A good fit if you dislike in-app purchases and want bigger models on a Mac.
4. Enclave: local first, cloud if you want it
Enclave lets you try hundreds of open models, chat with PDFs and other documents, talk to it by voice using Apple's on-device speech, build custom assistants and call it from Siri and Shortcuts. Local use is free. Pro is listed at $9.99, and the app's description presents Pro as a subscription that adds cloud models from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and xAI. Good if you want one app for both private local chats and the occasional cloud model.
5. PocketPal AI: for people who want any model
PocketPal is free and open source (MIT licence). You search Hugging Face from inside the app and run any GGUF model you find, with no curated list in between. That makes it the most flexible option and the one for tinkerers. The flip side is that choosing a model that fits your phone's memory is up to you.
6. Privacy AI: the most features
Privacy AI is a chatbot and an agent: it plans, calls tools (its page lists more than 60), supports MCP, has an AI keyboard for other apps, and runs both GGUF and MLX models plus Apple's own models. Its page says local model features are free and that cloud models and the MCP marketplace need a subscription; on the US store the plans are $3.99 a week, $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. It has few ratings so far. Choose it if you want an agent, not just a chat.
Also worth knowing: On-Device AI sells Pro as a subscription ($3.99 or $34.99, depending on the plan) or as a lifetime purchase.
How to choose
Three complaints come up again and again in the reviews of apps in this category, ours included. They make better criteria than any feature list:
- Crashes when loading a model. A model too big for your device's memory will close the app. Prefer an app that tells you a model will not fit, and start with a small one (under 1 GB) on an iPhone.
- Lost chat history. Everything lives on the device, so an update gone wrong or a deleted app can take your chats with it. Check whether the app lets you export or share conversations, and use it for anything you want to keep.
- Paywalls that move. A feature that is free today can move behind a subscription tomorrow. Read the most recent reviews, and if that worries you, prefer a clear free tier or a one-time purchase.
Then, by what you need:
- Private by default, the interface in your language, a memory check before loading, a one-time upgrade: Pinku.
- One free app, iPhone and Mac: Locally AI.
- Pay once, Siri, bigger models on a Mac: Private LLM.
- Local plus an optional cloud model in the same app: Enclave.
- Any model you can find: PocketPal AI.
- An agent with tools: Privacy AI.
Where ChatGPT is not available
OpenAI does not offer ChatGPT in every country. Russia, mainland China and Hong Kong are among those missing from its list of supported countries. There, an assistant that runs on the device is often the practical option, not just the private one, provided the app is in your App Store. On 7 October 2026 Apple's lookup API showed:
- Russia: Pinku, Enclave, PocketPal AI, Private LLM and Privacy AI. Not Locally AI.
- Mainland China: Pinku, PocketPal AI and Private LLM.
- Hong Kong: all six.
Models are downloaded from Hugging Face, which can be slow or unreachable in some places. Pinku has an “alternative download source” setting that uses a mirror for that case. More on this in the best ChatGPT alternatives that work offline on iPhone, and on privacy in the best private AI apps that keep your chats on your iPhone.