Best LM Studio alternatives

LM Studio is best for chatting with local AI models through a friendly app. If that is not you — or price, features or availability in your country do not fit — these 12 alternatives are worth a look.

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SoftwareBest forFree planOrigin
DeepSeek logoDeepSeekReasoning and coding questions on a budgetYesCNVisit
Stability AI (Stable Diffusion) logoStability AI (Stable Diffusion)Teams wanting open image models they can run themselvesVerifyGBVisit
NotebookLM logoNotebookLMStudying and summarising your own documentsYesUSVisit
Google AI Studio logoGoogle AI StudioTrying Gemini models free and building prototypesYesUSVisit
Hugging Face logoHugging FaceFinding and trying thousands of open AI modelsYesUSVisit
Le Chat (Mistral) logoLe Chat (Mistral)A free, fast AI assistant from EuropeYesFRVisit
Qwen Chat logoQwen ChatFree chat with Alibaba's open Qwen modelsYesCNVisit
Upscayl logoUpscaylFree AI image upscaling on your computerYesINVisit
OpenAI Whisper logoOpenAI WhisperFree speech-to-text transcription on your own machineYesUSVisit
Ollama logoOllamaRunning AI models privately on your own computerYesUSVisit
ComfyUI logoComfyUIAdvanced, free image and video generation workflowsYesUSVisit
Llama (Meta) logoLlama (Meta)Developers building with open-weight modelsYesUSVisit
#8

Best for: Free AI image upscaling on your computer

✓ Completely free
✓ Works offline

Free plan
Visit Upscayl ↗
#10

Best for: Running AI models privately on your own computer

✓ Free
✓ Data stays on your machine

Free plan
Visit Ollama ↗
#11

Best for: Advanced, free image and video generation workflows

✓ Free
✓ Very flexible

Free plan
Visit ComfyUI ↗
1DeepSeek logo

DeepSeek

Best for: Reasoning and coding questions on a budget

Visit site

AI assistant and models known for strong reasoning and low-cost API access.

Pros

  • Free chat
  • Strong reasoning

Cons

  • Review data-privacy terms before sharing business data
Free plan
Yes
Pricing
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AI Assistants & Chatbots, AI Coding Assistants
2Stability AI (Stable Diffusion) logo

Stability AI (Stable Diffusion)

Best for: Teams wanting open image models they can run themselves

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Developer of the Stable Diffusion family of open image models and related APIs.

Pros

  • Open models you can self-host
  • API access

Cons

  • Needs technical setup for self-hosting
Free plan
Verify
Pricing
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AI Image Generators, Free & Open-Source AI Tools
3NotebookLM logo

NotebookLM

Best for: Studying and summarising your own documents

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Google's AI research notebook that answers from sources you upload, with audio overviews.

Pros

  • Answers grounded in your sources
  • Audio overviews
  • Free

Cons

  • Works best with well-organised sources
Free plan
Yes
Pricing
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AI Research & Productivity Tools, Free & Open-Source AI Tools
4Google AI Studio logo

Google AI Studio

Best for: Trying Gemini models free and building prototypes

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Free web tool to use Gemini models and get an API key.

Pros

  • Free usage tier
  • Latest Gemini models

Cons

  • Free tier data may be used to improve products
Free plan
Yes
Pricing
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AI Assistants & Chatbots, Free & Open-Source AI Tools
5Hugging Face logo

Hugging Face

Best for: Finding and trying thousands of open AI models

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Hub of open-source AI models, datasets and demo apps (Spaces).

Pros

  • Huge free model library
  • Try demos in browser

Cons

  • Technical for beginners
Free plan
Yes
Pricing
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Free & Open-Source AI Tools
6Le Chat (Mistral) logo

Le Chat (Mistral)

Best for: A free, fast AI assistant from Europe

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Mistral AI's assistant with web search and document upload.

Pros

  • Free plan
  • Fast responses

Cons

  • Fewer integrations
Free plan
Yes
Pricing
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AI Assistants & Chatbots, Free & Open-Source AI Tools
7Qwen Chat logo

Qwen Chat

Best for: Free chat with Alibaba's open Qwen models

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Free chat app for Qwen models, which are also available open-weight.

Pros

  • Free
  • Open-weight models available

Cons

  • Review data-privacy terms
Free plan
Yes
Pricing
See provider
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AI Assistants & Chatbots, Free & Open-Source AI Tools
8Upscayl logo

Upscayl

Best for: Free AI image upscaling on your computer

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Free, open-source desktop app that upscales images with AI.

Pros

  • Completely free
  • Works offline

Cons

  • Needs a capable GPU for speed
Free plan
Yes
Pricing
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AI Photo Editing Tools, Free & Open-Source AI Tools
9OpenAI Whisper logo

OpenAI Whisper

Best for: Free speech-to-text transcription on your own machine

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Open-source speech recognition model supporting many languages including Hindi.

Pros

  • Free and open source
  • Many languages

Cons

  • Technical setup
Free plan
Yes
Pricing
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AI Voice & Text-to-Speech, Free & Open-Source AI Tools
10Ollama logo

Ollama

Best for: Running AI models privately on your own computer

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Run open models like Llama, Qwen and Mistral locally.

Pros

  • Free
  • Data stays on your machine

Cons

  • Needs a decent computer
Free plan
Yes
Pricing
See provider
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Free & Open-Source AI Tools
11ComfyUI logo

ComfyUI

Best for: Advanced, free image and video generation workflows

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Node-based open-source interface for image and video models.

Pros

  • Free
  • Very flexible

Cons

  • Steep learning curve
Free plan
Yes
Pricing
See provider
Also in
AI Image Generators, Free & Open-Source AI Tools
12Llama (Meta) logo

Llama (Meta)

Best for: Developers building with open-weight models

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Meta's family of open-weight large language models.

Pros

  • Free to download
  • Large community

Cons

  • Licence conditions apply
Free plan
Yes
Pricing
See provider
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Free & Open-Source AI Tools