Comparison

MLC Chat vs Local AI Chat

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

Head to head
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.

About

Local AI Chat

This app offers a private, offline AI chatbot experience using on-device language models. It supports various text generation tasks and provides code examples for developers. Chats can be archived after a one-time purchase.

Highlights
  • Offline AI chat
  • On-device language model
  • Text generation tasks
  • Developer code examples
  • Chat archiving
  • Privacy protection
Features
Read full description

SmartFruit provides a chat interface to test Apple Intelligence's local language model on the device. It works offline, thereby protecting your privacy. The on-device model is supports a wide range of text generation tasks, like summarization, entity extraction, text understanding, refinement, dialog for games, generating creative content, and more. World knowledge to a lesser extent. The quality of responses in this area is naturally not on par with large cloud-based models, but that’s beyond my control. Especially developers can try out all generation options of Apple's Foundation Models framework and get a corresponding code example.. Furthermore, chats can be archived for later review after a one-time in-app purchase. Important: This app requires iOS 26 and Apple Intelligence. Please ensure your device is compatible before purchasing.

Screenshots

MLC Chat2 screens
Local AI Chat3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Local AI Chat at 5.0 against MLC Chat's 4.2. Local AI Chat also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 68%). MLC Chat's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 5) and ratings volume (83 vs 2). On price, update cadence, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Local AI Chat sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. MLC Chat asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Local AI Chat holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: MLC Chat has 83 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 68% of MLC Chat's written reviews are positive against 100% of Local AI Chat's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and October 30, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
MLC Chat versus Local AI Chat: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMLC ChatLocal AI Chat
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.2 (83 ratings)5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews68.3% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings83 — better2
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size1.7 GB7 MB
Age rating17+12+
DeveloperTianqi ChenRoy Schulz

Customer experience

MLC Chat

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

Local AI Chat

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

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
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

Local AI Chat

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

MLC Chat

No in-app purchases

5 purchases

Local AI Chat

One-time5
  • Unlock Archive$0.99
  • Archive + Tip$1.99
  • Archive + More Tip$3.99
Show 2 more
  • Archive + Major Tip$5.99
  • Archive + Premium Tip$9.99

Questions

Is MLC Chat free?
MLC Chat is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Local AI Chat free?
Local AI Chat is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, MLC Chat or Local AI Chat?
Local AI Chat is rated higher. MLC Chat averages 4.2 out of 5 from 83 ratings, while Local AI Chat averages 5.0 from 2 ratings.
Do MLC Chat or Local AI Chat have ads?
Neither MLC Chat nor Local AI Chat shows ads.
Which is updated more often, MLC Chat or Local AI Chat?
MLC Chat ships an update every 2 months, and Local AI Chat every 2 months. Most recently, MLC Chat was updated on November 3, 2026 and Local AI Chat on October 30, 2026.

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