Comparison

HALIO AI vs ownAI

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

Head to head
About

HALIO AI

Features
Read full description

HALIO is a private, offline-first AI assistant that lives on your iPhone. No cloud. No account. No subscription. No signal required. Every major AI app today sends your conversations to a server. HALIO doesn't. The model runs on your device, your prompts stay on your device, and your history never leaves your phone. Airplane mode, a spotty connection, or no connection at all โ€” HALIO keeps working. WHY HALIO โ€ข 100% on-device โ€” GPU-accelerated for fast, efficient inference on modern iPhones. โ€ข Truly private โ€” your conversations are stored locally and never transmitted. โ€ข No sign-up โ€” open the app and start chatting. โ€ข No subscription โ€” one-time download, no hidden tiers, no server-side rate limits. โ€ข Offline by default โ€” works on a plane, on the subway, in the woods, under a desk. WHAT YOU CAN DO โ€ข Ask questions, brainstorm ideas, draft writing, summarize notes. โ€ข Dictate messages with on-device speech recognition. โ€ข Attach photos from your library to ground a conversation. โ€ข Keep multiple conversations going in parallel. โ€ข Use it as a thinking partner without worrying who's reading. FROM BUILDERBIAS HALIO is built by BuilderBias โ€” intentional, transparent, responsible AI by design. We believe your AI should work for you, not the other way around. That means running on hardware you own, with data you control, under terms you can read. Download HALIO. Go offline. Keep thinking.

About

ownAI

Features
Read full description

ownAI is a personal AI that belongs to you โ€” not to a platform. It remembers what you talk about and gets smarter over time. If it is missing a capability, it builds one itself. The more you use it, the more it becomes yours. YOUR DATA STAYS YOURS Conversations, memories, and settings are stored locally on your iPhone. When you use an external language model, only what is needed for a given request is transmitted โ€” nothing else. No ads, no tracking, no data mining. ownAI is open source. ONE CONTINUOUS CONVERSATION No chat sessions to manage: ownAI is one flowing dialogue. A layered memory keeps what matters โ€” recent context, summaries, and long-term memories you can browse and edit at any time. AN AI THAT EXTENDS ITSELF Ask for a new capability and ownAI builds it: small reusable helpers for everyday automation, or interactive mini-apps that run right inside the app, safely sandboxed. YOUR CHOICE OF MODEL - Entirely on your device: run an open-source model locally โ€” private and able to work offline. ownAI checks your iPhone and recommends a model that fits it. - Via ownAI Credits: powerful models from leading providers with a single balance โ€” you choose the region that processes your requests (EU, Switzerland, US). - Via your own API key: connect Anthropic, OpenAI, or your own Ollama server directly. ALWAYS WORKING FOR YOU Schedule recurring tasks and get a notification when they finish. IN YOUR LANGUAGE ownAI speaks English and German.

Screenshots

HALIO AI3 screens
ownAI4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is device support: HALIO AI at 3 against ownAI's 1. On price, ads, in-app purchases and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

Scorecard1 real difference ยท 5 level
HALIO AI versus ownAI: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHALIO AIownAI
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyโ€”Every 2 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod โ€” betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.1 โ€” better16.4
Further details โ€” not scored
Size36 MB43 MB
Age rating17+12+
DeveloperBruce ElginJan Pawellek

In-app purchases

None

HALIO AI

No in-app purchases

None

ownAI

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is HALIO AI free?
HALIO AI is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is ownAI free?
ownAI is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do HALIO AI or ownAI have ads?
Neither HALIO AI nor ownAI shows ads.

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