Nativ: Run AI models locally on your Mac

Simon Willison's Blog 07/21/26, 02:22 PM Products

local-ai mlx macos desktop-app chat-interface api-server

Summary

Nativ is a new macOS desktop app that wraps MLX to run AI models locally, offering a chat interface and API server.

No content available

Original Article

View Cached Full Text

Cached at: 07/21/26, 02:37 PM

# Nativ: Run AI models locally on your Mac Source: [https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jul/21/nativ/](https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jul/21/nativ/) 21st July 2026 \- Link Blog **[Nativ: Run AI models locally on your Mac](https://blaizzy.github.io/nativ/)**\([via](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48982681)\) Prince Canuma is the developer behind the excellent[MLX\-VLM](https://github.com/Blaizzy/mlx-vlm)Python library for running vision\-LLMs using MLX on a Mac\. I'm really excited about his new project, which wraps MLX in a full macOS desktop application\. It's similar in shape to LM Studio, providing both a chat interface and a localhost API server for accessing models\. The app picked up MLX models I had already tried that were present in my Hugging Face cache directory, which was a nice touch\.

Similar Articles

Nativ: Run frontier open models locally on your Mac

Hacker News Top

Nativ is a free, open-source macOS app that lets you run frontier open AI models locally on Apple Silicon, with no accounts or subscriptions.

@Prince_Canuma: Excited to introduce Nativ Run frontier open models locally on your Mac. No accounts, no subscriptions, no cloud. Built…

X AI KOLs Timeline

Nativ is a free, open-source macOS app that lets users run frontier open models locally on Apple Silicon, with no accounts, subscriptions, or cloud dependency.

@awnihannun: Three MLX videos dropped at WWDC: Running agents locally by @angeloskath https://youtube.com/watch?v=wykPErJ8M-8… Distr…

X AI KOLs Following

Three MLX videos from WWDC demonstrate running AI agents entirely locally on Apple Silicon using the MLX stack, including local inference, tool calling, and distributed inference across Macs, enabling no-cloud, offline AI workflows.

New MLX LM Server From Apple

Reddit r/LocalLLaMA

Apple's MLX team introduces MLX LM Server, a tool for running AI agent workflows fully locally on Mac, supporting continuous batching, distributed inference, and M5 neural acceleration, with no need for cloud or API keys.

Run (your largest) local models from your iPhone