I was paying $20/month for Claude and barely using it. Frustrated, I discovered free local models (Gemma, Llama) actually work great for most things. So I decided to try OpenWebUI.
Problem: OpenWebUI kept breaking. Random crashes, resource-heavy and setting up docker was honestly just annoying. I just wanted to chat with AI.
So I built Byte for myself.
What is Byte?
A native macOS app (Windows/Linux coming soon) that runs free local AI models via Ollama, or brings your own API keys (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.). No server to manage, no crashes, just download and run. One App.
