Jan vs Private LLM
We give Jan a 3.4 GPA and Private LLM a 2.2, out of 4.0. Jan grades higher on the free plan, ease of use and platforms. They get the same grade on value for money and features.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Private LLM
Offline AI chat app for iPhone, iPad and Mac with a one-time price
From $4.99 one-time
How we grade them
| 3.4GPAJanVery good | 2.2GPAPrivate LLMFair | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | AIt costs nothing. Jan is free and open source under Apache 2.0, with no paid plan and no account. The only bills come from cloud providers, and only if you choose to connect one with your own API key. | A$4.99 once on the US App Store, with no subscription. That one purchase covers iPhone, iPad and Mac, every model in the catalog, and up to six people through Family Sharing. Most assistants charge more than that for a single month. |
| Free plan and trial | AThe full desktop app is free: local models, cloud connections, web search and the local API server. Nothing is held back, because there's no paid tier to hold it for. | FNothing is free. There's no free version and no trial on record, so it's $4.99 before you can open it. A small gamble at that price, but still a gamble. |
| Features | BLocal and cloud models in one app, web search that's on by default with no key needed, Projects, custom assistants, MCP connectors and an OpenAI-compatible server for your other apps. Solid. But Cowork, the multi-step agent, ships only in nightly builds, and memory is marked as coming soon. | BIt does one job fully: private text chat with open models, picked from a catalog of 142, with system prompts, Siri and Shortcuts, and rewrite or summarise tools in any Mac app. But it can't read documents, has no internet access, and its models are text only. |
| Ease of use | BInstall it, pick a model, chat. The Hub shows whether each model fits your hardware, and local ones need no account or key. There's no rating on record for a desktop app, so it stops at a B. | C4.1 from about 730 App Store ratings, which is low for this category. You also choose and download a model before your first chat, and the larger ones want an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, or an Apple Silicon Mac. |
| Platforms and integrations | BmacOS, Windows and Linux, though not Intel-based Macs, and no phone or web version is listed. It connects to OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Mistral AI, Groq and OpenRouter by key, and its local server lets tools such as Claude Code run on Jan's models. | CiPhone, iPad and Mac, with hooks into Siri and Shortcuts. That's Apple only. An Android version exists as an early beta you download as an APK, not from Google Play, and no Windows or web version is listed. |
| Best for | running open AI models on your own computer, free | offline AI chat on Apple devices, paid for once |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Jan and Private LLM. How we grade
Where they differ
- Jan is free. Private LLM starts at $4.99 one-time (US App Store).
- Jan has a free plan. Private LLM does not.
- Only Jan lists Windows and Linux apps.
- Only Private LLM lists an iOS app.
- Jan is open source, according to its own site.
- Private LLM can be bought with a one-time purchase.
- Jan also covers AI search.
In commonmacOSWorks offlineLocal-firstAI featuresChat assistant
At a glance
| Jan | Private LLM | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free | Paid |
| Starts at | Free | $4.99 one-time (US App Store) |
| Free plan | Jan is free and open source under the Apache 2.0 license, and no account is needed. Cloud models need an API key from the provider you connect. | None |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| macOS | ||
| Windows | ||
| Linux | ||
| iOS | ||
| Made by | Menlo Research | Numen Technologies Limited |
| Price read from | jan.ai | apps.apple.com |
| Checked | Oct 5, 2026 | Oct 9, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Jan
- Running open models offline on your own computer
- People who want one desktop app for local and cloud models
- Developers who want a local OpenAI-compatible endpoint
Private LLM
- Apple users who want AI chat that never leaves the device
- People who prefer a single purchase to a monthly subscription
- Building Siri and Shortcuts workflows around a local model
Worth knowing
Jan
- Desktop only, on macOS, Windows and Linux. Intel-based Macs are not supported.
- Local models need memory: Jan's Mac guide suggests 8GB of RAM for 3B models, 16GB for 7B models and 32GB for 13B models.
- Cloud models need your own API key from each provider, and those providers see the messages you send them.
- Cowork and the standalone Jan Agent are previews on nightly builds, and the memory feature is marked as coming soon.
Private LLM
- It cannot read documents or files, and it has no internet access for live information.
- Models cannot be loaded from Hugging Face; only those the developer has quantized are offered, and they are text-only.
- Larger models need recent hardware: the vendor recommends an iPhone 15 Pro or newer and an Apple Silicon Mac.
- The Android version is an early beta offered as a direct APK download, not through Google Play.
Key features
Jan
- Local models
- Downloads and runs open models such as Llama, Gemma and Qwen from Hugging Face using llama.cpp or MLX. The Hub shows whether each model fits your hardware.
- Cloud providers with your own key
- Connects to OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Mistral AI, Groq, OpenRouter and Azure OpenAI, or to any OpenAI- or Anthropic-compatible endpoint, using an API key you supply.
- Built-in web search
- Web search and page fetch tools are on by default for models that support tool use. They run through a keyless Exa endpoint, so no API key or MCP server is needed.
- Projects and assistants
- Projects group conversations under shared instructions and files, and custom assistants keep their own instructions for recurring kinds of work.
- Local API server
- A built-in OpenAI-compatible server at localhost:1337 lets other applications use the models running in Jan, and Claude Code can be set to use them as its backend.
- MCP connectors and Cowork preview
- MCP servers add tools such as code execution and databases. Cowork, which works through multi-step tasks on files and commands, ships only in nightly builds as a preview.
Private LLM
- On-device chat with open models
- Runs open-source models such as Llama 3.3, Qwen3, Gemma 3, Phi 4 and DeepSeek R1 Distill on the device. The site's catalog lists 142 models, filterable by device, memory and use case.
- No account and no cloud
- Prompts are processed on the device and nothing is sent to a server. The app needs no login and, according to the vendor, collects no personal data.
- Siri and Shortcuts
- Two app intents work with Siri and the Shortcuts app, and x-callback-url support lets other apps pass text in and get the model's reply back.
- Writing tools across macOS
- On a Mac, select text in any app and right-click to rewrite, summarize or correct it on-device. This works in English and major Western European languages.
- In-house quantization
- Models are compressed by the developer with OmniQuant and GPTQ, which the vendor says keeps output closer to the original model than the round-to-nearest method used by llama.cpp and MLX apps.
- System prompts and sampling settings
- The system prompt can be customized to shape how a model responds, and sampling temperature and Top-P can be changed from their defaults; those changes apply after the app restarts.
Plans
Jan
Free$0
The full desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux, with local models, cloud provider connections and the local API server.
Private LLM
Private LLM$4.99
one-time purchase
One purchase covers iPhone, iPad and Mac with every model in the catalog, and can be shared with up to six people through Family Sharing.
Ways to pay less
Jan
No public discounts listed.
Private LLM
- Lifetime license
One purchase for every Apple device
Private LLM is bought once with no subscription. The purchase unlocks the iPhone, iPad and Mac versions and extends to a Family Sharing group of up to six people.
