So these keep your data private. Are they able to pull data from outside as needed? You mentioned offline use - I don't understand how it is possible to do some of these tasks without access to online resources. What am I missing?
They only pull data from outside if you specifically turn on that functionality. (Not all even have that capability.) By default, accessing search or any data from outside your AI instance is turned off with these services, which is why they work fully offline. I hope that helps clarify! - Jeremy
There are multiple paths to making money for the free private AI services I've written about —
In some cases they sell a premium upgrade, as is the case with Msty https://msty.ai/#pricing The completely free version has all that most people need for private AI, but they also sell a premium version with fancy pro features ($129/year).
- LM Studio also operates this way, with a completely free version for home and work use, but a paid version available for companies: https://lmstudio.ai/work
- AnythingLLM also has a similar model, with a completely free version for ordinary people, which is what I've written about in this post, and a paid version for startups: https://anythingllm.com/cloud ($99/month)
- Jan AI is a different case, because there is no premium paid version. Instead, it's a fully open source project led by Menlo Research https://menlo.ai/ Menlo describes itself as an open R&D lab building the brain for robots, so they will likely generate revenue through their other products and services, while Jan remains free as an open source project.
The nice part is that for individual use, these are all completely free, with no catches, tricks, or hidden ads, at least as far as I've seen in my experience thus far.
If anyone wants to add to this, I'd be happy to hear other thoughts/info/updates.
Is LM Studio safe? I installed it, and then tried to delete it, which was not easy to do. In the process of looking up why it was so hard to delete, I found some Reddit threads speculating about security issues around LM Studio. Do you know anything about this?
So these keep your data private. Are they able to pull data from outside as needed? You mentioned offline use - I don't understand how it is possible to do some of these tasks without access to online resources. What am I missing?
They only pull data from outside if you specifically turn on that functionality. (Not all even have that capability.) By default, accessing search or any data from outside your AI instance is turned off with these services, which is why they work fully offline. I hope that helps clarify! - Jeremy
Thank you, nice post!
Thanks, Jeremy. I never stop learning with every new post you publish. By the way, I've tried Jan, and everything you say is true.
Best regards.
Thanks, Gustavo, for the feedback! Much appreciated.
So, going with the notion that nothing is free...how do these companies make their money?
There are multiple paths to making money for the free private AI services I've written about —
In some cases they sell a premium upgrade, as is the case with Msty https://msty.ai/#pricing The completely free version has all that most people need for private AI, but they also sell a premium version with fancy pro features ($129/year).
- LM Studio also operates this way, with a completely free version for home and work use, but a paid version available for companies: https://lmstudio.ai/work
- AnythingLLM also has a similar model, with a completely free version for ordinary people, which is what I've written about in this post, and a paid version for startups: https://anythingllm.com/cloud ($99/month)
- Jan AI is a different case, because there is no premium paid version. Instead, it's a fully open source project led by Menlo Research https://menlo.ai/ Menlo describes itself as an open R&D lab building the brain for robots, so they will likely generate revenue through their other products and services, while Jan remains free as an open source project.
The nice part is that for individual use, these are all completely free, with no catches, tricks, or hidden ads, at least as far as I've seen in my experience thus far.
If anyone wants to add to this, I'd be happy to hear other thoughts/info/updates.
Is LM Studio safe? I installed it, and then tried to delete it, which was not easy to do. In the process of looking up why it was so hard to delete, I found some Reddit threads speculating about security issues around LM Studio. Do you know anything about this?
I haven't encountered any such issues personally, Shelby, and this Reddit thread I'm linking to seems to include several people noting that "There are no known issues with LLM Studio" and other such comments, which isn't conclusive by any means, but is a data point. https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1i74mao/how_trusted_is_lm_studio/ There is also a thread I came across about an earlier - not current - version of LMStudio for Windows having a temporary issue that was resolved https://github.com/lmstudio-ai/lmstudio-bug-tracker/issues/166
Got it thanks!
another fantastic piece, thanks for the knowledge!
Thanks, Johnny, I appreciate your feedback! I'd love to chat with you sometime to trade productivity/creativity ideas. - Jeremy