Comparison

Pythonista 3 vs MLC Chat

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Pythonista 3

Develop and run Python 3 scripts directly on your iPad or iPhone. This complete scripting environment includes popular third-party modules and allows access to iOS features like sensors, location, and photos. Automate your device with app extensions and integrate with Shortcuts and Siri.

Highlights
  • Powerful code editor with syntax highlighting
  • Interactive prompt with code completion
  • Integrated visual debugger
  • Offline Python documentation
  • UI editor for prototyping
  • Share sheet and system-wide keyboard extensions
  • Shortcuts app integration
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

Pythonista is a complete scripting environment for Python 3.10, running right on your iPad or iPhone, so you can develop and run Python scripts on the go. Like Python itself, "batteries are included" – from popular third-party modules like requests, numpy, matplotlib, pandas (and many more) to modules that are tailor-made for iOS. With Pythonista, your scripts can access sensor/location data, your photo library, contacts, reminders, the clipboard, and more, allowing you to harness the full potential of both Python and iOS. Pythonista is designed with a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for anyone to get started with coding, regardless of skill level. The complete Python documentation is also available for offline reading in the app. Pythonista is not just for learning and practicing Python – it's also a powerful tool for automating iOS with multiple app extensions. You can invoke scripts directly from the share sheet or a custom system keyboard in almost any app, and integrate scripts with Shortcuts and Siri. With Pythonista, it's easy to run your scripts whenever you need them, without having to switch between different apps. Features: > Powerful code editor with syntax highlighting, code completion, and scripting support > Interactive prompt with code completion, command history, and support for showing images > Integrated visual debugger and object inspector > Complete offline documentation with quick lookup directly from the editor > Various beautiful light and dark color themes, and a theme editor to make your own > UI editor for quick prototyping > Integrated PEP 8 style checker and code formatter > Supports most of the Python standard library and additional modules for graphics, sound, and iOS integration (for example clipboard, contacts, reminders, photos, ui...) > Many popular third-party modules included, for example requests, numpy, matplotlib, pandas, Pillow... > Lots of included examples > Universal app for iPad and iPhone > Share sheet extension for running scripts from almost any app > Scriptable system-wide keyboard to use Python in any app that edits text > Advanced integration with the Shortcuts app, allowing you to use Python scripts as actions in shortcuts and personal automations. Please note that Pythonista is not designed to enable the installation or download of additional modules written in compiled languages (C/C++). While many popular native libraries are included and work out-of-the-box, it is generally not possible to install additional modules with C/C++ dependencies. The name "Pythonista" is used with kind permission from the Python Software Foundation.

About

MLC Chat

Engage in conversations with open language models directly on your iPad or iPhone. Once a model is downloaded, all interactions occur locally, ensuring privacy and offline functionality without internet access. This app is designed for non-commercial use, allowing you to run various open-source language models on your device.

Highlights
  • Local AI model chat
  • Offline functionality
  • No internet required
  • Privacy-focused
  • Open-source project integration
  • Downloadable language models
Features
Read full description

MLC Chat lets users chat with open language models locally on ipads and iphones. After a model is downloaded to the app, everything runs locally without server support, and it works without internet connections do not record any information. Because the models run locally, it only works for the devices with sufficient VRAM depending on the models being used. MLC Chat is part of open source project MLC LLM, with allows any language model to be deployed natively on a diverse set of hardware backends and native applications. MLC Chat is a runtime that runs different open model architectures on your phone. The app is intended for non-commercial purposes. It allows you to run open-language models downloaded from the internet. Each model can be subject to its respective licenses.

Screenshots

Pythonista 34 screens
MLC Chat2 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: MLC Chat at Free against Pythonista 3's $9.99. MLC Chat also leads on update cadence (every 2 months vs every 19 months). Pythonista 3's advantage is rating (4.5 vs 4.2) and ratings volume (1.5K vs 78). On review sentiment, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

MLC Chat is free to download; Pythonista 3 costs $9.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Pythonista 3 holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Pythonista 3 has 1.5K ratings behind it against 78, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 73% of Pythonista 3's written reviews are positive against 68% of MLC Chat's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pythonista 3 ships an update every 19 months, MLC Chat every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and August 19, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 4 level
Pythonista 3 versus MLC Chat: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPythonista 3MLC Chat
Price$9.99Free — better
Rating4.5 (1.5K ratings) — better4.2 (78 ratings)
Positive reviews73.4% of reviews — better68.3% of reviews
Number of ratings1.5K — better78
Update frequencyEvery 19 monthsEvery 2 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidFree — better
Best chart rank#23 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS12.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size853 MB1.7 GB
Age rating4+17+
Developeromz:softwareTianqi Chen

Customer experience

Pythonista 3

All ratings1,522 ratings
Positive85.3%
Neutral3.9%
Negative10.8%
Written reviews538 reviews
Positive73.4%
Neutral6.7%
Negative19.9%

MLC Chat

All ratings78 ratings
Positive83.3%
Neutral3.8%
Negative12.8%
Written reviews63 reviews
Positive68.3%
Neutral12.7%
Negative19.0%

Bugs and requests

Pythonista 3

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

MLC Chat

Reported bugs

17 issues
  • 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
Show 12 more
  • 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

Requested features

14 requests
  • 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
Show 9 more
  • 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

In-app purchases

None

Pythonista 3

No in-app purchases

None

MLC Chat

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Pythonista 3 free?
Pythonista 3 costs $9.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is MLC Chat free?
MLC Chat is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Pythonista 3 or MLC Chat?
Pythonista 3 is rated higher. Pythonista 3 averages 4.5 out of 5 from 1.5K ratings, while MLC Chat averages 4.2 from 78 ratings.
Do Pythonista 3 or MLC Chat have ads?
Neither Pythonista 3 nor MLC Chat shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Pythonista 3 or MLC Chat?
Pythonista 3 ships an update every 19 months, and MLC Chat every 2 months. Most recently, Pythonista 3 was updated on September 24, 2026 and MLC Chat on August 19, 2026.

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