Apfel

AI

local llm cli

SHOW HN2026

743points
157comments
#20of 4,366 in 2026
Top 1%of 2026 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

15 positive, 39 neutral or asking, 5 mixed, 20 critical, out of 79 comments about the project. Thread score -0.04.

Performance: 4 for, 7 againstExecution: 1 for, 5 againstIdea: 5 for, 0 againstDesign: 1 for, 4 againstPrivacy: 1 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Free, fully local, and fast to load for quick tasks

    From 3 comments
    • 4,096 token context window is pretty limiting. That's roughly 3,000 words — fine for "summarize this paragraph" but not enough for anything that needs real context. Still, zero…
      kangraemin on HN
    • BoltAI also does this, but a CLI tool is nice. It’s a nice LLM because it seems fairly decent and it loads instantly and uses the CPU neural engine. The GPU is faster but when I…
      api on HN
    • Started using this earlier this week. I built a backtesting benchmark tool to compare a mix of frontier and open-source models on a fairly heavy data analysis workflow I’d been…
      Multiplayer on HN
  • Good result on a custom backtesting task

    From 1 comment
    • Started using this earlier this week. I built a backtesting benchmark tool to compare a mix of frontier and open-source models on a fairly heavy data analysis workflow I’d been…
      Multiplayer on HN

Objections

  • Small 4k token context window limits real use

    From 3 comments
    • 4,096 token context window is pretty limiting. That's roughly 3,000 words — fine for "summarize this paragraph" but not enough for anything that needs real context. Still, zero…
      kangraemin on HN
    • the 2 hard limits of Appel Intelligence Foundation Model and therefor apfel is the 4k token context window and the super hard guardrails (the model prefers to tell you nothing…
      franze on HN
    • This is similar to something I was playing around with last month-- basically just a CLI for accessing the foundational models. https://github.com/ehamiter/afm It's really handy…
      EddieLomax on HN
  • Inconsistent and incorrect answers, including math and time zones

    From 2 comments
    • Saw this in an another thread previously and immediately installed it. I have a new prompt to test LLMs much like simonw's pelican test. "What is 9:30am Taiwan time in US,…
      newman314 on HN
    • 1. Hugely non-deterministic: repeat queries give vastly different responses. 2. Often returns incorrect and inconsistent results even for mathematical queries. 3. Often the…
      contingencies on HN
  • Hallucinates answers about unknown people and companies

    From 1 comment
    • Wow - the model really hallucinates without hesitation. I asked a number of "What do you know about [person, company, etc]?" questions and rather than realizing that it didn't…
      zopf on HN
  • Landing page feels overly marketing-heavy

    From 2 comments
    • Looks like a nice wrapper around the APIs. Extremely oversold landing page, very marketing heavy for what it is. You can actually make nice looking landing pages that are about…
      furyofantares on HN
    • I find the branding to be a little odd. Like, it should be a github page with a README that says "here's how to use this." Like, the full explanation of this project is right…
      andy_xor_andrew on HN
  • Requires Tahoe macOS 26 and Apple Intelligence enabled

    From 2 comments
    • You have to enable Apple Intelligence so that's a hard no from me. I'll stick to LM Studio and gpt-oss/qwen. Very cool project though.
      walthamstow on HN
    • Tahoe+ only
      sys_64738 on HN

Requests

  • MCP tool calling support

    From 1 comment
    • Interesting approach. I've been building MCP tools for AI agents recently and the local-first model makes a lot of sense for privacy-sensitive use cases. Does Apfel support MCP…
      Xentyon on HN
  • Streaming output support

    From 1 comment
    • 4,096 token context window is pretty limiting. That's roughly 3,000 words — fine for "summarize this paragraph" but not enough for anything that needs real context. Still, zero…
      kangraemin on HN
  • Support for older macOS versions

    From 2 comments
    • Any know if these only installed on Tahoe? I'm running Sequoia still and get an error about model not found.
      elcritch on HN
    • Is this for Tahoe only? I’m still clutching onto Sequoia
      als0 on HN

Questions

  • Is it safe from other local apps and webpages hitting the local port via CORS

    From 2 comments
    • I’ve seen several projects like this that offer a network server with access to these Apple models. The danger is when they expose that, even on a loop port, to every other…
      brians on HN
    • Does the local LLM have access to personal information from the Apple account associated with the logged-in user? Maybe through a RAG pipeline or similar? Just curious if there…
      nose-wuzzy-pad on HN
  • Does it run on the Neural Engine or GPU

    From 2 comments
    • > Apple locked it behind Siri. apfel sets it free This doesn't feel truthful, it sounds like this tool is a hack that unlocks something. If I understand it correctly, it's using…
      frontsideair on HN
    • BoltAI also does this, but a CLI tool is nice. It’s a nice LLM because it seems fairly decent and it loads instantly and uses the CPU neural engine. The GPU is faster but when I…
      api on HN
  • How does it compare with other local models like Qwen in LM Studio

    From 2 comments
    • How does this model compare against other local models like Qwen run through LMStudio?
      satvikpendem on HN
    • Interesting. How does this foundational model compares with other LLMs?
      witnessme on HN

Alternatives named

  • LM Studio with gpt-oss or Qwen

    From 1 comment
    • You have to enable Apple Intelligence so that's a hard no from me. I'll stick to LM Studio and gpt-oss/qwen. Very cool project though.
      walthamstow on HN
  • BoltAI

    From 1 comment
    • BoltAI also does this, but a CLI tool is nice. It’s a nice LLM because it seems fairly decent and it loads instantly and uses the CPU neural engine. The GPU is faster but when I…
      api on HN
  • Handy for local voice input

    From 1 comment
    • On a similar bent, I recently discovered Handy (cross-platform) which is very well implemented local voice input: https://handy.computer/ ... serious finger saver and ideal for…
      contingencies on HN
  • aiME on iOS and Android

    From 2 comments
    • Love seeing this space grow. Been running local AI on my phone via aiME — same concept but iOS/Android, with offline voice, vision, and custom personas. Subscriptions felt like a…
      aimemobe on HN
    • Nice project. The mobile equivalent worth mentioning: aiME does this on iPhone and Android — runs Qwen, Mistral, Gemma entirely on-device with no internet after download.…
      aimemobe on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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