Pal Chat vs MLC Chat
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Pal Chat
This app acts as a universal AI chat client, supporting a wide range of models and features like image input, image generation, and offline capabilities. It offers a private and secure experience with no data collection and no ads.
- Supports all major AI models
- Image input and generation
- Offline local model support
- Save prompts and history
- Stream responses
- Full Markdown and LaTeX support
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The last AI iOS app you'll need! Pal Chat is a lightweight, powerful, and feature-rich AI Chat Client for your iPhone. It supports EVERY AI model in one interface, including support for: GPT-5.5, Claude 4.7, Gemini 3.1, Grok 4.3, Cursor, Advanced Voice Mode, Image input, GPT-Image 2, Groq, Perplexity, OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Mistral, Fal.ai, Together.ai, custom endpoints, and fully offline local models. No ads, fully private and secure - NO data is collected. Features Overview: - Save multiple prompts and system messages - Store conversation history on-device - Use Image input to process images - Generate images through GPT-Image, Stable Diffusion, Flux, or Fal.ai - Regenerate responses - Edit your questions - Stream the response - Easily switch between models - See the token length and cost of the conversation - Copy an entire conversation from the history page - Full Markdown, LaTeX, and Syntax Highlighting Support - Siri Shortcuts Support Some Benefits of the App over the website: - No usage limits - Privacy - History is only stored on-device - Lets you edit the system message and temperature values - Universal - easily switch many different models Make sure to get an API Key! ‘Pal’ is not liable for any content generated. Terms of Use: https://bit.ly/termsOfUsePalChatEULA Privacy Policy: https://bit.ly/privacyPolicyPalChatEULA
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.
- Local AI model chat
- Offline functionality
- No internet required
- Privacy-focused
- Open-source project integration
- Downloadable language models
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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
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: MLC Chat at none against Pal Chat's 2. MLC Chat also leads on review sentiment (68% vs 59%). Pal Chat's advantage is update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 2 months) and ratings volume (417 vs 78). On price, rating, ads 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
Both are free to download. Pal Chat sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $6.99 per month. MLC Chat asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.3 for Pal Chat against 4.2 for MLC Chat. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Pal Chat has 417 ratings behind it against 78, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 59% of Pal Chat's written reviews are positive against 68% of MLC Chat's.
Pal Chat ships an update every 3 weeks, MLC Chat every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and August 19, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Pal Chat | MLC Chat |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.3 (417 ratings) — better | 4.2 (78 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 59.1% of reviews | 68.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 417 — better | 78 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 101 MB | 1.7 GB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Pulkit Agarwal | Tianqi Chen |
Customer experience
Pal Chat
MLC Chat
User reviews
Pal Chat
From 417 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Excellent app design
- 🔒 Allows use of own API keys
- 👍 Customizable prompts and instructions
- 🚀 Efficient token usage tracking
- 👍 Responsive developer
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes with OpenRouter models
- 🐛 Keyboard lag and UI issues
- 💰 Subscription model for previously free features
- 🐛 Rendering issues with mathematical formulas
- 🐛 Inconsistent UI indicators for model outputs
MLC Chat
From 78 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Runs fast locally
- ✅ Works offline
- 💰 Free to use
- 👍 Easy to use
- 💡 Supports various LLM models
Room to improve
- ⚠️ Limited model selection
- 📉 High VRAM requirements
- 📱 Incompatible with older devices
- ❌ Crashes on some devices/models
- 🗄️ Cannot save conversations
Bugs and requests
Pal Chat
Reported bugs
3 issues- Inability to change AI provider
- Freezing on long responses
- Unavailability of certain models (e.g., GPT-4o-mini)
Requested features
5 requests- Conversation history search
- Support for local/self-hosted models
- Multimodal support (vision, audio)
- Ability to edit/delete messages in conversation
- Dynamic model listing from providers
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
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- 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
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- 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
Pal Chat
- Pal Chat Pro3 Days trial$6.991 Month
- Pal Chat Pro Annual7 Days trial$68.991 Year
MLC Chat
No in-app purchases
