Msty vs Private LLM

Msty

• Individuals who want local and hosted models in one desktop app
• Privacy-sensitive work where data should stay on the device
• Buyers who prefer a one-time lifetime license to a subscription

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

Msty

• Msty's terms limit the Free tier to personal, non-commercial use; work that earns revenue requires an Aurum or Enterprise license.
• The browser version, Msty Studio Web, needs an Aurum license, and several Free-plan features, including Knowledge Stacks and MCP tools, are marked Limited.
• Data does not sync between devices, an Aurum license covers 2 desktop devices, and Enterprise & Teams plans start at 5 user seats.
• Msty states that formal SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certification are not yet complete.

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.

Msty

Local and online models in one hub

Runs local models through Ollama, llama.cpp and MLX and connects hosted providers, so both kinds sit in the same organized model list.

Split Chats

Runs models side by side on the same conversation so you can compare tone, depth and accuracy without losing context.

Agent Mode

Carries out multi-step, tool-aware tasks instead of single prompts. MCP tools are connected through the Toolbox, which is limited on the Free plan.

Knowledge Stacks

Grounds answers in your own documents and notes with organized, source-aware retrieval. The feature is marked Limited on the Free plan.

Personas and Crew Conversations

Personas are reusable assistants built in Persona Studio, and Crew Conversations put several of them in one thread to work on a task together.

Data kept on your device

Studio stores data locally and does not sync it between devices; Studio Web keeps its data in the browser's local storage. Msty says it sends no product telemetry.

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.

Msty

• Free$0

  Core Studio Desktop features for personal, non-commercial use: chat with local and online models, persona and crew conversations, Agent Mode and Knowledge Stacks.

• Aurum$149

  per user / year, billed yearly

  A commercial license for one user on up to 2 desktop devices. Adds Msty Studio Web, Azure and Bedrock providers, Studio Assistants, Shadow Personas, Turnstiles and Insights.

• Aurum Lifetime$349

  per user, one-time payment

  The Aurum feature set with lifetime access and updates, for one user on up to 2 desktop devices. Msty's terms say it is protected from later price increases.

• Enterprise & TeamsCustom

  Minimum of 5 user seats, with SSO, user and team management, role-based access control, an audit log and shared team resources.

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.

Msty

• Lifetime license

  Aurum Lifetime for a one-time payment

  Aurum Lifetime costs $349 per user once and includes lifetime updates and access, against $149 per user per year for the Aurum subscription.

• Other savings

  Enterprise bundle across Msty products

  Msty offers a single enterprise agreement that combines Studio, Go, Nexus and Stack, priced by seat count and deployment shape instead of as separate product plans.

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.