It’s time to decentralize model distribution! Introducing Noema Atlas

TL;DR: Noema Atlas is a peer-to-peer network software using Iroh for local LLM weights, free and open source (Apache-2.0). Models come from whichever peers have them, with Hugging Face and mirrors as fallback (opt-in). Every file is identified by its content hash and a signed manifest, so the same weights from any source dedupe into one verified copy and every byte is checked as it streams in. Downloads fail over automatically when a source dies, identical files are stored once (reflink/hardlink), and you can rescue and reshare weights that got taken down from HF. Native lightweight desktop app for macOS/Windows/Linux, with direct machine-to-machine transfers over Iroh. atlas.noemaai.com We need your help to improve this project! --- We've been reading this community for a long time, and the same frustrations kept surfacing. The most important one it seems (especially with the taking down of Fable) is the reliance on a single source of models. Hugging Face is headquartered in the United States, allowing for future intervention from the government with regards to open source models deemed "unsafe" (most likely Chinese ones). So we made Noema Atlas (built using Rust), and the core idea is that it's a peer-to-peer network software allowing you to bring your models and seed them! A model you already hold can be served straight to someone else's machine, and a model you want arrives from whichever peers around the world happen to have it. Hugging Face and the usual mirrors are still there, but they only act as a fallback for when no peer is nearby or a file is too new to have spread. What makes the sharing safe is that a file's identity is the digest of its own contents. Model weights, regardless of where they have been sourced from, are verified using their BLAKE3 hash, which allows Noema Atlas to bring together peers without using traditional "trackers". A few things that came directly out of what people here have been asking for: Stored once. Identical files across model variants or mirrors are kept a single time. Dropping a model into a project uses a reflink or a hard link where the filesystem allows it. Rescue models that left the Hub. Drop any model type that got taken down, give it a title and license, and share it over a private link or out on the open mesh. The file's own header already records its name and quantization, so most of the work is just confirming what Atlas read. Sharded models travel under one bundle link, each file verified on its own. Openly licensed models you pull from the public mesh get reseeded by default, while gated downloads and anything you imported privately do not get seeded until confirmed by you (this can be toggled in settings). Atlas verifies content and leaves the license question to you, so nothing is broadcast unless you chose to broadcast it. Direct machine-to-machine over Iroh. Transfers run over a QUIC connection that threads through NAT with relays, addressing content by its BLAKE3 hash, so the transfer is verified end to end. Native and lightweight. A real desktop app for macOS, Windows, and Linux with no web runtime at all, so it stays light on memory. There's a full CLI too for working over SSH or scripting a setup. If you'd rather have a more modern-looking interface, there's a second app, Noema Atlas Studio, that runs on the same engine and reads the same store, so a model you fetch in one also shows up in the other. Noema Atlas and Atlas Studio are both still a work in progress and we'd appreciate YOUR contributions! Although we think you will love this first release, there can be a lot more done to improve your experience! You may find a few or a lot of bugs which we will actively work towards fixing. Please comment below what you like and what needs improvement! Apache-2.0, free and open source. You can see the live network and grab a build at atlas.noemaai.com, or build from source! https://github.com/noemaai-labs/noema-atlas.git To learn more about who we are, you can visit noemaai.com and find out more about our involvement in the local LLM community.