Cumbersome vs SageGate

IMPORTANT: Requires your own API keys from OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, Google AI Studio, Z.ai, or Vercel AI Gateway, or your own OpenAI-compatible endpoint. I built Cumbersome because consumer AI apps kept dumbing things down. Cumbersome is the manual transmission of AI apps: more complex, but with far greater control. WHY I BUILT THIS Consumer AI providers like ChatGPT and Claude route requests to cheaper models to keep their costs down. They charge monthly subscriptions whether you use them once or a thousand times. They hide the technical controls that let you tune how models respond. And they lock you into one provider. I wanted an AI client that connects directly to AI provider APIs. I wanted to pick exactly which model I use and know I'm getting it. I wanted to compare different models on the same prompt. I wanted to pay per use instead of subscriptions. So I built it. This is the app I use every day to interact with AI, so I pay attention and try to get it right. SUPPORTED PROVIDERS Bring your API keys, or add your own OpenAI-compatible endpoint, for any of the following: — ChatGPT / OpenAI — Claude / Anthropic — Gemini / Google AI Studio — OpenRouter multi-provider — Vercel AI Gateway multi-provider — Z.ai — OpenAI-compatible custom endpoints, including Ollama, Azure, LM Studio, Groq, Together, and self-hosted backends WHAT YOU GET — A free app. — A versatile API client. One app, every major provider and model. — Total control. Pick your model, tune the parameters, switch providers mid-conversation. — Compare models head to head. Stream multiple chats in parallel and let an AI judge pick the best. — Bring your own tools. Local browser use, reasoning, web search, image generation. — Rich, editable conversations. Markdown, LaTeX, code blocks, attachments, edit and export anything. — Private by design. iCloud sync across devices. Nothing saved to our servers. — Native and accessible on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. MAJOR FEATURES ADDED IN 2026 Highlights only. See What's New on the App Store for the latest. 2026-07-02: Chat appearance themes and reading fonts (Serif, Rounded, Mono). 2026-06-28: Folder-level system message presets. 2026-06-24: Prompt caching, with cache usage shown across providers. 2026-06-17: Reusable system message presets per conversation. 2026-06-16: Offload long system messages to iCloud Drive. 2026-06-15: Pause custom API parameters with a toggle. 2026-06-11: Compact a conversation to lower API costs. 2026-06-07: Run JavaScript and HTML directly from Cumbersome. 2026-06-04: Choose how OpenRouter parses PDFs and which search engine it uses. 2026-05-12: Configurable Quick Prompt shortcut and App Visibility on Mac. 2026-05-09: Conversation folders. Group, move, and organize chats. 2026-05-03: Collapsible sidebar sections, synced across devices. 2026-04-22: AI image generation with OpenAI and Gemini. 2026-04-18: Local browser tool use. AI can search and browse pages. 2026-04-11: Headless mode. The AI works the browser in the background. 2026-04-03: Searchable model picker for long model lists. 2026-03-15: Extended thinking and reasoning across providers. 2026-03-09: Auto-delete conversations after a set number of days. 2026-02-28: OpenAI-compatible custom providers (Ollama, Azure, LM Studio, Groq). 2026-02-25: Only Search When Requested. Keep web search off until you ask. 2026-02-24: Image paste, interactive attachment previews, and PDF thumbnails. 2026-02-21: Siri and Shortcuts integration. 2026-02-20: Vercel AI Gateway support, with model exclusion filters. 2026-02-06: Voice Control, Larger Text, and higher contrast. 2026-01-11: Major accessibility pass. VoiceOver, Dynamic Type, keyboard nav. 2026-01-06: OpenRouter multi-provider integration. THE DEAL The app is free. You pay providers directly for API access. I'm Peter, an indie developer in Reno, Nevada, out among the high desert tumbleweed. No VC money. No growth hacking. Just a tool I wanted to exist.

Stop paying $20/month for each AI subscription. SageGate connects you directly to 20+ AI providers through one beautiful app — and you only pay for what you actually use. HOW IT WORKS Connect your own API keys and pay per conversation instead of $20/month per service. Many users spend under $5/month for heavier usage than any single subscription offers. SageGate shows you exactly what each message costs — no surprises, no waste. YOUR DATA STAYS YOURS The free app has no accounts, no sign-ups, and no servers of ours. Your conversations live only on your device or your personal iCloud. Your API keys are stored in the iOS Keychain, and you can lock the whole app behind Face ID. Chats run over Apple's encrypted networking (TLS) straight to the provider you chose — SageGate is never in the connection, so we can't read or decode them. We never see your messages. Period. 20+ AI PROVIDERS, 40+ MODELS IN ONE PLACE Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, GLM, DouBao, ERNIE, HunYuan, MiniMax, Yi, Spark and more — plus Claude and Amazon Nova models through Amazon Bedrock on your own AWS. Ask ChatGPT for writing, switch to Claude for code, then check with Gemini — all in one thread. Three of the providers are aggregators (OpenRouter, Together AI, SiliconFlow) you can point at your own models, and any provider can use a custom API endpoint of your own. ONE KNOWLEDGE BASE ACROSS EVERY MODEL (SAGEGATE CLOUD — OPTIONAL) Your documents shouldn't be trapped inside one AI. SageGate Cloud gives you your own private vector database that every model can search — pulling back only what's relevant. Switch models and they all reach the same knowledge; nothing is siloed. Upload from your iPhone, or from any browser at portal.sagegate.ai. Upgrade only if you want the shared cloud brain. Still no accounts: - T4 Managed Cloud ($19.99/mo) — we host your encrypted vault; zero setup. - T3 Private Cloud ($5.99/mo) — your documents live in your own AWS. We handle only the transport — converting to Markdown, chunking, embedding, ingesting and retrieval all run transiently in our pipeline — and we keep nothing on our side. - T2 Self-Host ($1.99/mo) — your AWS only, extracted on your device; we never touch a byte. The app itself stays completely free — and giving back is built in: 10% of every App Store purchase goes to 501(c)(3) animal-welfare nonprofits (records published at sagegate.ai). SEE WHAT YOU SPEND Every message shows exactly how many tokens were used and what it cost. Daily, weekly, and monthly dashboards break down spending by provider. Think of it as a budgeting app for your AI usage. AUTOMATE YOUR BUSYWORK Set up Skills — reusable prompt templates for tasks you do every day, like summarizing emails or translating documents. Schedule tasks to run automatically when you open the app. BRING YOUR OWN FILES Drop PDFs, Word docs, spreadsheets, or presentations into the app. SageGate reads them on-device and lets any AI answer questions about them. Stay fully local for free, or add SageGate Cloud to index them for search. Drag files into iCloud Drive from your Mac and they appear instantly. REMEMBER WHAT MATTERS Tap "Remember" on any helpful AI response. That knowledge carries across every future conversation with every provider — your personal AI memory that grows with you. RUN AI ON YOUR OWN COMPUTER Connect to local models on your Mac — for work that should never touch the internet — through LM Studio, oMLX, Llama.cpp, and similar tools. WORKS IN YOUR LANGUAGE Full support for 13 languages: English, Simplified & Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Hindi, and Indonesian. ADDITIONAL FEATURES - Watch AI models "think" in real-time with visible reasoning streams - Export any AI response as a formatted PDF with one tap - Organize chats with folders, pins, search, and smart sorting - Full VoiceOver accessibility support, light & dark mode