MLC Chat vs WalkWrite
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
WalkWrite
This app uses advanced AI to transcribe voice notes and articles directly on your device, ensuring complete privacy. It offers accurate speech-to-text, word-level playback synchronization, and easy export options for both audio and text files.
- 100% On-Device Privacy
- Accurate AI Transcription (Whisper 3 Turbo)
- Word-Level Highlight Playback
- One-Tap Export (.txt or audio)
- Offline-First Functionality
- No Subscription Required
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Take notes or write your articles on a walk—state of the art AI transcribing without ever leaving your data in the cloud. WalkWrite turns your iPhone into a pocket‑sized voice notebook powered by Whisper 3 Turbo speech‑to‑text model. Every word is processed locally on your device, so your recordings, transcripts, and highlights never touch a server. Why WalkWrite • 100 % On‑Device Privacy – No login, no tracking, no surprise uploads. • Accurate AI Transcription – Whisper 3 Turbo handles accents, filler words, and background noise. • Word‑Level Highlight Playback – Watch the text light up in sync as you listen. • One‑Tap Export – Email yourself a clean .txt transcript or the original audio file. • Offline‑First – Works in airplane mode; ideal for travel, labs, or secure workplaces. • No Subscription – Core app is free. A single in‑app purchase unlocks unlimited notes & sharing. Perfect For • Quick brain dumps while walking • Meeting or lecture takeaways • Journaling on walks or daily reflections • Podcasters & creators capturing ideas on the go Free Tier vs. Full Unlock Free – Record and share up to 10 notes, playback with highlights. One‑Time Unlock ($1.99) – Unlimited notes, unlimited length, unlimited export & share, priority for future model updates. This is not a subscription. In the past I have paid a bunch of money in subscriptions for apps like this. This app requires none of that, it has no backend. The only reason I am charging is so I can keep the app up to date for you, add features, and add the latest models as they become available. But with this app: Your Data = Your Business WalkWrite stores audio in Files - On My iPhone - WalkWrite/Audio and text in a small encrypted database. Delete a note and it’s gone—no replicas on someone else’s server. FAQ: Why is the app so large? The AI models are included with your app download, no other downloads required, no data sent anywhere. Is there a monthly or annual subscription? No, none. Is there an account required? No, none. Where are the notes stored? On your device and only shared if you chose to share them.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: WalkWrite at 5.0 against MLC Chat's 4.2. WalkWrite also leads on update cadence (every 6 days vs every 2 months). MLC Chat's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and ratings volume (78 vs 2). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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. WalkWrite sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. MLC Chat asks for nothing beyond the download.
WalkWrite holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: MLC Chat has 78 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two.
MLC Chat ships an update every 2 months, WalkWrite every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on October 6, 2026 and September 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | MLC Chat | WalkWrite |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.2 (78 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 68.3% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 78 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 6 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 17.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1.7 GB | 370 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Tianqi Chen | Motivation Stack LLC |
Customer experience
MLC Chat
WalkWrite
Bugs and 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
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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
WalkWrite
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
MLC Chat
No in-app purchases
WalkWrite
- WalkWrite Full Unlock$1.99









