MLC Chat vs Scan
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
Read full descriptionHide 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.
Scan
This app transforms a single photo of multiple documents into individual, straightened scans. It automatically detects and crops each item, offering various filters and export options to Files or Photos. Automate workflows with Apple Shortcuts for efficient document management.
- Automatic document detection and cropping
- Straightens and flattens scanned items
- Save as individual files or combined PDF
- Black-and-white, grayscale, and color filters
- Apple Shortcuts integration
- On-device processing
Read full descriptionHide full description
Scan-A-Lot turns one photo of many documents into separate scans. Lay your receipts out on a table and take one picture. The algorithm finds each receipt, then crops, straightens and flattens it. Save them as separate files, or combine them into one PDF. No more scanning them one at a time. It works great for letters, school forms, recipes and cards too! You can even automate it with Apple Shortcuts! • Finds every document, even tilted or shot at an angle. Missed one? Just tap it. • Drag a corner to adjust a crop, or rotate a document. • Black-and-white, grayscale and color filters, for every page or one at a time. • Save documents as images or PDF files to Files or Photos, or share them to any app. • Shortcuts: "Split Photo into Documents" splits a photo without opening the app, or opens it so you can check the crops first. • Runs on iPhone, iPad and Macs with Apple silicon. On iPad, use keyboard shortcuts, drag and drop, and multiple windows. • Everything happens on your device. No account, no ads, no tracking and no subscription. (Scan-A-Lot makes images and PDFs. It doesn't read the text on your documents or add up your receipts.)
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: MLC Chat at Free against Scan's $2.99. MLC Chat also leads on ratings volume (83 vs 2) and iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). Scan's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.2) and update cadence (daily vs every 2 months). On 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
MLC Chat is free to download; Scan costs $2.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Scan 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.
MLC Chat ships an update every 2 months, Scan daily. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 26, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | MLC Chat | Scan |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $2.99 |
| Rating | 4.2 (83 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 68.3% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 83 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Daily — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1.7 GB | 24 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Tianqi Chen | NATHAN PAUL WATKINS JR |
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 moreShow fewer
- 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 moreShow fewer
- 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
Scan
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
MLC Chat
No in-app purchases
Scan
No in-app purchases









