Ollama

Ollama lets you run large language models directly on your own hardware, without sending data to third-party APIs. It's built for developers, researchers, and anyone who wants the capabilities of modern AI models without giving up control over their data.

The core idea is local-first. Models run entirely on your machine, which means no usage fees per token, no data leaving your network, and full offline capability for sensitive or mission-critical work. When local hardware isn't enough, an optional cloud tier gives access to larger models running on datacenter-grade hardware.

Key capabilities:

• Local model execution runs models on your own CPU or GPU, keeping all data on-device
• Cloud scaling lets you access larger, faster models when local resources hit their limits, with servers in the US, Europe, and Singapore
• App and agent support connects with tools like Open WebUI and coding assistants, so you can build workflows around open models
• Parallel requests are supported in cloud mode, useful when running multiple agents or serving several users at once
• Web access is available for cloud models, giving them real-time information retrieval
• Data privacy guarantees mean your inputs are never used for training, on either local or cloud runs

Ollama fits naturally into setups where you want a local AI assistant or a self-hosted backend for agent-based tools. The free tier covers cloud model access at a basic level, with paid plans unlocking higher concurrency and usage limits for heavier workloads.