Hob: free open-source local AI app for Windows, Mac, Linux

Hob is aimed squarely at the setup work that keeps many people from running AI on their own hardware. Rather than asking users to pick among model sizes and build a runtime, it inspects the machine and downloads a matching open-weight model such as Gemma or gpt-oss, then opens a chat window. On the reviewed Windows 11 machine, that meant attaching a sales CSV and asking for a monthly bar chart with a Japanese explanation, and attaching a PDF with a request for three key points — both of which the app handled. Image analysis is delegated to a separately downloaded Qwen3-VL model.

The app also organizes work beyond single chats: a folder can be registered as a project so its files are handled together, and chat history can be saved as Markdown. It connects to outside services through MCP, a common standard for letting AI call external apps, though such links may require authentication and network access.

Reaction on Hacker News was mixed. One commenter welcomed having something that simply works, while others questioned how capable the model is and noted the lack of a straightforward way to remove the 18GB model. Hob deliberately stops short of deep tuning: it supports changing inference depth and the model in use, but not Temperature, context length or GPU usage. That places it for people who want quick local chat and file handling rather than fine-grained control.