AnythingLLM vs LM Studio

Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.

AnythingLLM

Open-source AI app for documents, agents and local models

Free plan · from $50/mo

LM Studio

Desktop app for running open AI models on your own computer

Free plan · from $20/mo

Where they differ

AnythingLLM starts at $50 per month (Basic hosted cloud instance). LM Studio starts at $20 per month (Bionic+, for cloud models).
Only AnythingLLM lists a web app.
Only AnythingLLM lists an Android app.
AnythingLLM is open source and self-hostable, according to its own site.
AnythingLLM also covers meeting notes.

In commonFree planmacOSWindowsLinuxLocal-firstAI featuresChat assistantAI agents

	AnythingLLM	LM Studio
Pricing	Free plan	Free plan
Starts at	$50 per month (Basic hosted cloud instance)	$20 per month (Bionic+, for cloud models)
Free plan	The desktop app is free for personal and commercial use with no account, and the MIT-licensed multi-user version can be self-hosted with Docker at no charge.	LM Studio is free for home and work use. Bionic's Free plan covers the agent, local models, offline voice transcription, LM Link for up to 5 devices and limited web search.
Free trial	None listed	None listed
Web
macOS
Windows
Linux
Android
Made by	Mintplex Labs, Inc.	Element Labs, Inc.
Price read from	anythingllm.com	lmstudio.ai
Checked	Oct 5, 2026	Oct 5, 2026

AnythingLLM

LM Studio

AnythingLLM

The hosted cloud has no built-in LLM and does not support custom agents or MCP; you connect your own model provider.
Magic Echo, Beacon and Tab have daily free limits. The Pro subscription that removes them is priced on a checkout page that could not be read.
Magic features and AnythingLLM Pro work on Windows and macOS only, and the mobile app is for Android only.
Hosted cloud instances have no GPU, and the docs warn that embedding very large documents can crash an instance on the lower tier.

LM Studio

LM Studio itself is desktop only; on iPhone and iPad its models are reached through the separate Locally app. Intel-based Macs are not supported.
Local models need capable hardware: the docs recommend 16GB of RAM or more, and on Windows at least 4GB of dedicated VRAM.
The paid plans cover cloud models in LM Studio Bionic, a separate app; cloud use needs an LM Studio account with available credits.
LM Link is in preview and free for now; LM Studio says free and paid LM Link plans will follow at general availability.

AnythingLLM

Chat with your documents: Documents you add become part of the assistant's knowledge base. In the desktop app they are processed on the device and no data leaves it.
Local or cloud models: Recommends a local model to suit your hardware and needs no API key, and can also connect cloud providers such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
Agents and custom skills: Agents can search and scrape the web, read, write and search local files, run recurring background jobs and use custom agent skills.
Meeting Assistant: Transcribes and summarizes meetings on your own computer, producing action items, key decisions and a full transcript with no bot joining the call.
Magic Echo, Beacon and Tab: System-wide dictation, questions about highlighted text and autocomplete on Windows and macOS. Each has a daily free allowance that an AnythingLLM Pro subscription removes.
Multi-user deployment: The Docker and hosted cloud versions serve several users on one server with isolated tenants, fine-grained admin controls and white-label branding.

LM Studio

Local model runner: Downloads and runs open models such as gpt-oss, Qwen, Gemma and DeepSeek on your own hardware with llama.cpp, plus Apple's MLX on Apple Silicon Macs.
Offline chat with documents: Chat and document chat (RAG) run on the device. The docs say nothing entered into a local chat or dropped into it as a document leaves the machine.
Local API server and SDKs: Serves models on OpenAI-like endpoints on localhost or the local network, with Python and TypeScript SDKs, the lms command line tool and the headless llmster daemon for servers.
MCP client: MCP servers can be installed in LM Studio so that local models can call the tools they provide.
LM Link: Links your own machines over an end-to-end encrypted connection built on Tailscale, so a model on a remote device can be used as if local, including from an iPhone through the Locally app. In preview.
LM Studio Bionic agent: A separate app that works on code and on documents, slides and spreadsheets inside projects, using local models, LM Link models or cloud models billed in credits.

AnythingLLM

Desktop and self-hosted$0
The desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux with no account, or the multi-user version self-hosted with Docker. Magic features have daily free limits.
Basic (Cloud)$50
per month
A private hosted instance on a custom subdomain for independent use or small teams, with RAG and agents set up. You bring your own LLM API key.
Pro (Cloud)$99
per month
A private hosted instance with priority resources for larger teams and a 72-hour support SLA.
EnterpriseCustom
On-premise deployment with a custom SLA, custom integrations, SSO and role-based access control.

LM Studio

Free$0
Local models through llama.cpp and MLX, the Bionic agent, offline voice transcription, LM Link for up to 5 devices and limited web search.
Bionic+$20
per month
Adds US-hosted open source cloud models such as Kimi K3 and DeepSeek V4 Flash, discounted bulk tokens, and web search with page extraction.
Pro$100
per month
Everything in Bionic+ with 5x the usage limits, discounted bulk tokens and early access to new features.

AnythingLLM

Other savings
Free self-hosting with Docker
The multi-user version sold as hosted cloud plans from $50 a month can instead be self-hosted with Docker for free under the MIT license.

LM Studio

No public discounts listed.