Apfel

Apfel is a small toolkit built entirely on top of Apple Intelligence, the on-device model already running on your Mac. A single command-line tool exposes it as an OpenAI-compatible chat completions server, a scriptable CLI, and an interactive terminal chat — so anything that speaks the OpenAI API can point at your own Mac instead of the cloud.

Why it makes the list

Every other "local AI" option means downloading multi-gigabyte models and running your own inference server. Apfel skips all of that: since macOS already ships Apple Intelligence, there's nothing to download, no API key to buy, and no data ever leaves the machine. It's a genuinely useful trick turned into a proper toolkit, with a companion GUI chat app (Apfel Chat) for people who'd rather not touch a terminal at all.

Standout features

• OpenAI-compatible server — point existing OpenAI-API tools at Apple Intelligence locally
• Interactive CLI chat for quick questions without leaving the terminal
• Zero setup: no model downloads, no API keys, no cloud calls
• MCP server support for wiring Apple Intelligence into Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients
• Apfel Chat, a native macOS GUI for the same on-device model
• Fully scriptable, built for automation and quick shell one-liners

Pricing

Completely free and open source (MIT) — it's just a thin layer over a model already on your Mac.