Run an AI app builder on your own machine
Almost every AI coding tool is a client for someone else's servers. You paste a prompt, it goes to a provider, code comes back, and you pay per token for the privilege. Adrian can work that way if you want it to. It does not have to.
What running locally actually means
Adrian runs open models on your own hardware through Ollama. The prompt, the generated code, and every repair pass in between stay on the machine — nothing is sent to a model provider, because there is no provider in the loop. There is no API key to create and no account to sign up for.
This is not a degraded mode bolted on for demos. The same crew of agents runs either way: the plan, the design pass, the code generation, the checks on the result. What changes is where the model weights live.
What you need to run it
- A reasonably modern machine. Adrian reads your RAM, VRAM and free disk on first run and recommends models that will actually fit, rather than letting you download something your machine cannot load.
- Disk space for the models themselves. A capable coding model is several gigabytes; you can keep more than one and switch between them.
- No account, no key, no card. Local builds cost nothing per run because nothing is metered.
The honest trade-off
Local models are slower than frontier hosted ones, and a build that a large hosted model finishes in a couple of minutes can take several on consumer hardware. That is the real cost, and it is worth knowing before you start rather than after.
What you get for it is a build that costs nothing to run, works without a network, and keeps your work on your own disk. For a lot of side projects and internal tools, that is the better trade.
The right model for each job
Coding and visual design are different skills, and the models that are good at them are different models. Adrian assigns each role by capability rather than by whatever happens to be installed first, so a small general-purpose model does not end up making your design decisions. You can see the assignment and change it.
When you do want the cloud
- Bring your own key from a provider you already pay. Adrian never takes a cut of that bill.
- Or use Adrian Agents, the hosted crew with credit included — the paid tier.
- Either way the switch is per role, and local stays available alongside it.
The Windows desktop build is available now. The current build is unsigned, so Windows will show a SmartScreen warning on first run — the download page explains how to verify the checksum before you run it.