# MLC Chat — user reviews > 63 indexed App Store user reviews of MLC Chat by Tianqi Chen, rated 4.24/5 from 78 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mlc-chat/id6448482937/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mlc-chat/id6448482937.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 50 · 4★ 15 · 3★ 3 · 2★ 2 · 1★ 8 ## What do users think of MLC Chat? Overall sentiment: mixed **Pros** - 🚀 Runs fast locally - ✅ Works offline - 💰 Free to use - 👍 Easy to use - 💡 Supports various LLM models - 📱 Great on newer iPhones - ✨ Impressive proof of concept **Cons** - ⚠️ Limited model selection - 📉 High VRAM requirements - 📱 Incompatible with older devices - ❌ Crashes on some devices/models - 🗄️ Cannot save conversations - 🔄 Download/upload features removed/broken - 🐌 Slow updates/downloads **Commonly reported bugs** - Phi model crashes on iOS 26.0.1 17 Pro Max - App crashes on iPad Pro 4th Gen, iPadOs 17.7 - RedPajama model crashes app on initialization - Update is extremely slow - Download model button disabled in new version - RedPajama model crashes, custom model download removed - App closes when hitting send on iPhone 13 - Conversation resets when app is backgrounded - Vicuna and Mistral 7B models cause crashes - Some 7b q4f16/q4f32 models crash on iPhone 15 Pro - App crashes on iPhone 13 mini - Cannot load other models from URL - Crash on iPhone 12 - Severe heating and frequency reduction on A15 - Low VRAM failed initialization on 3GB LP DDR4X phone - Cannot run 4bit model on iPhone 15 with 8GB RAM - Loading models from HF MLC official Repo causes crashes **Most requested features** - Ability to import custom models (from URL/Hugging Face) - Support for more specific models (DeepSeek, Phi-2, Gemma 2B/7B, MoE Mixtral 8x7B, LLaVA) - History of conversations - iOS shortcuts support - Ability to export entire responses - Information on VRAM requirements per phone/model - Ability to change system message/create custom profiles - Ability to edit responses and system prompt - Add coffee support - Delete downloaded models - Change settings per model (repetition penalties, temperature) - How-to guide for importing/recompiling LLMs - Estimate model compatibility before download - Support for CN and ZH languages ## Newest reviews (16 of 63) ### 3/5 — Pre-Selected Models *2026-02-01, version 1.6* Look it works so I’ll give it that but you can only use one of 5 models. Maybe it’s hard to code the ability to import others but add that and it’s 5 stars ### 4/5 — Phi is broken and crashes *2025-10-05, version 1.6* It’s a great app it’s very nice on 17 pro max but phi does always crash on iOS 26.0.1 17 pro max. Might just be on this phone but I never got this model to work. Everything else works perfectly though ### 4/5 — Good *2025-03-09, version 1.6* It works ### 4/5 — Completely offline, no subscription! *2025-01-28, version 1.6* I love that it’s completely offline, with local inference and that there’s no subscription. But, it’d be a lot cooler with two additional features: (a) history of conversations and (b) ability to use the LLMs in iOS shortcuts ### 4/5 — It runs really fast! *2025-01-17, version 1.6* can you add some features like model download/switch; serving with openai-like api? ### 4/5 — Crashes on iPad Pro 4th Gen, iPadOs 17.7 *2024-10-21, version 1.6* I’ve heard good things about this app. And I’d really love to try these carefully selected smallLLMs, unfortunately the App crashes on my machines, an iPad Pro 4th Generation. There is a blank window with some text, a startup message “System initialize…” then the screen disappears. This happen with all language models I’ve downloaded. Waiting for the next version. ### 3/5 — Doesn’t work on older phones *2024-10-21* This only works on newer phones with a lot of VRAM. I tried downloading each model and it failed with a message that my iPhone 11 Pro doesn’t have enough VRAM. Even the smallest model, qwen, requires >2.8 GB. And there doesn’t seem to be any way to find out how much VRAM your phone has. Google search doesn’t know, and I downloaded the app Mactracker, which gives all sorts of details about your phone configuration, but it doesn’t know about VRAM. It would be nice if the developer could provide some information about which phones are compatible. ### 2/5 — Cannot save conversations *2024-09-29, version 1.6* Tried many times, the conversations cannot be saved. It’s really a nuisance! What’s the point if the conversation isn’t saved for later use? Disappointed! ### 4/5 — models *2024-06-24, version 1.4* missing a few big models still like llama 3 (as of right now at least), otherwise pretty good ### 3/5 — Pretty good. *2024-03-31* Can the developer comment on if the testflight version records data or is no data collected on either version? ### 4/5 — App works well, but uploading custom models is a problem *2024-03-17, version 1.2* The app works well, but the instructions on how to upload other models is unclear, leaving me to only use Mistral and nothing else. ### 4/5 — Great *2024-03-10, version 1.2* RedPajama model crash app, when initializing the model. IpadOS 17.1.1, m2 iPad pro. Mistral/ LLama2 works great. Please add few other local model to play around. ### 3/5 — Used to be 5* *2024-02-25, version 1.2* I don't know what has happened but this app used to give you the option to install multiple models but now I only have one and no option to add others ### 3/5 — Dommage *2024-02-14, version 1.2* Dommage que cette appli ne soit pas adaptée à l’iPhone SE3 (pas assez de VRam)et dommage que le développeur ne l’indique pas explicitement en description. J’espère que cela fonctionnera sur le prochain iPhone SE. ### 5/5 — Does not work on IPhone 15 *2024-01-16, version 1.2* I really love the app! I tried all the models but all of them kept crashing. Maybe I didn’t set it right? Anyone can help? Thank you! ### 4/5 — DL ? *2024-01-14, version 1.2* Download button dissapeared ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — Nope *2026-06-09, version 1.6* Overly censored and a waste of time. I get done censorship, but when you over censor everything, you become useless!!! Try putting rules in place to block the underage and allow the adults to be adults and make their own decisions. If kids gain access, that’s the parent’s fault! We shouldn’t have to suffer because people don’t know how to correct their bad behaved children! ### 1/5 — No point *2025-04-06, version 1.6* This app allows you to download only 4 very small open source models. LLM Farm is what you people are looking for not this ### 1/5 — Won’t run on ipad mini *2024-01-20, version 1.2* Useless! Deleted ### 1/5 — Not enough VRAM on iPhone 13 mini *2024-01-06, version 1.2* Not enough VRAM on iPhone 13 mini ? So I can’t do anything in the app :( ### 1/5 — Crashes on iPhone XS *2024-01-02, version 1.2* This app really shouldn't be made available on iPhone XS. The Mistral and Llama models fail to initialize due to insufficient memory, and the RedPajama model will initialize but crash the app every time you try to use it. So it's completely unusable on an XS, and you have to download many GBs of models to discover that. ### 1/5 — Doesn’t work *2024-01-02, version 1.2* It doesn’t work at all in n my iPhone 13. It just closes app when I hit send. ### 1/5 — Won’t work on iPhone 15 *2023-12-19, version 1.2* Sorry, the system cannot provide 3814.7MB VRAM as requested to the app, so we cannot initialize this model on this device. ### 1/5 — Can’t load other models from URL. *2023-12-19* The previous version could load models from URL. But in this version, the feature was removed without notifying in release note. ### 1/5 — Doesn’t work *2023-12-11, version 1.1* Won’t load any standard models ### 1/5 — doesn’t work *2023-10-31, version 1.1* crashes on iphone 13 mini ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy on your phone *2026-03-28, version 1.6* Amazing. Offline researching soil Ph levels in the Scottish Cairngorms! ### 5/5 — Awesome! *2025-01-27, version 1.6* MLC Chat is awesome! It offers great chat models like Llama, Gemma, Phi, and Mistral, and the app runs smoothly with quick responses. It’s super easy to use and really fun to interact with. The only thing I’d love to see is support for DeepSeek R1 1.5b and 3b to make it even better. Highly recommend! ### 5/5 — Love it *2024-10-07, version 1.6* It’s an amazing app but I wish you could export out the entire response. It only seems to allow one paragraph at a time. ### 5/5 — Great app *2024-10-01, version 1.6* The app is great but can you add shortcuts support? ### 5/5 — Great free app *2024-09-27, version 1.6* Hey. just wanted to take a moment to express my heartfelt appreciation for this amazing app! Not only is it incredibly easy to use and totally free, but the developer has added new models very quickly when they’ve come out. And the latest update is a testament to that - the latest llama models from Meta are now available, and I'm thrilled to report that the llama 3.2 3B model works beautifully on my iPhone 15 Pro! Thanks again! ### 5/5 — Great app! *2024-09-26, version 1.5* Would love a way to add links to models in Hugging face as long as they have been converted to MLX! ### 5/5 — Please, support Gemma 2B and 7B *2024-02-22, version 1.2* As you may have noticed, Gemma 2B and 7B have been released. Please, make the latest models available and add coffee support :-) ### 5/5 — An entertaining and helpful offline tool *2024-02-18, version 1.2* Love this proof of concept. The UI could be improved but it’s hard to complain about a free, mind blowing app like this ### 5/5 — Amazing performance *2024-01-30, version 1.2* I love how fast the LLMs in this app are. Is this because of the chosen quantization? I usually use q8 on my desktop computer, and it take minutes to generate a text. Anyway. I wish it was possible to run Dolphin Mixtral (because I heavily dislike the alignment of regular Mistral), and LLaVA (because local image recognition directly from a smartphone would be amazing). Keep up the good work! ### 5/5 — Runs great! *2024-01-19, version 1.2* Takes a moment to load up first time, but runs quickly when I close my other apps (I have a 13 pro max). Tested Mistral, worked great. 5 stars all the way! Hoping more models are added as they get released. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-19.*