Jan is a free, open-source desktop app that runs AI models locally on your own hardware or connects to cloud models like GPT, Claude, and Gemini for private chatting.
About
Jan is an open-source desktop application that serves as a privacy-focused alternative to hosted chat services such as ChatGPT. It lets users run open large language models directly on their own computers, which means conversations stay on the local machine instead of being processed on someone else's servers. For people who want cloud capabilities anyway, Jan can also connect to online models including OpenAI's GPT, Anthropic's Claude, and Google's Gemini.
The app is developed by Menlo Research and is built openly in public, with its source code available on GitHub, where the project has accumulated roughly 45,000 stars. Jan reports more than 7 million downloads and is free to use. The software ships in two main forms: Jan Desktop, the local chat application, and Jan Agent. A memory feature that carries conversation context between sessions was listed as coming soon at the time of this review.
Key Features
Pricing & Fees
- Pricing: The site describes Jan as free and open source; no paid plans are advertised on the pages reviewed.
- License and cost: Because it is open source, the software itself carries no purchase price or subscription.
- Platform availability: A Mac download is offered directly on the homepage; check the official site for other platforms.
- Notable limitation: The memory feature was marked as "coming soon" and was not yet available at the time of review.
Who It's For
Jan suits developers and technical hobbyists who want to experiment with local large language models without sending data to a cloud provider. It also fits privacy-conscious professionals — lawyers, healthcare workers, or anyone handling sensitive material — who need chat transcripts to remain on their own machines. Students and researchers can use it to compare open models such as Llama, Qwen, and DeepSeek side by side, while casual users who already have API access to GPT or Claude can consolidate those services in one desktop interface.
FAQ
What is Jan?Jan is a free, open-source desktop application that runs AI models locally on a user's computer or connects to cloud models like GPT, Claude, and Gemini, positioned as an alternative to ChatGPT.
Is Jan free?Yes, the official site presents Jan as free and open source, with no paid plans listed on the pages reviewed.
Which AI models can Jan use?Jan supports open models including Llama, Mistral, Qwen, DeepSeek, and Gemma, and can also connect to hosted services from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google.
Does Jan keep my data private?When running local models, conversations are processed on the user's own hardware rather than a remote server; connecting to cloud models, however, involves those providers' services.
Does Jan have memory?A feature that remembers context and preferences across conversations was listed as coming soon on the official site at the time of this review.
Related Tutorials
View all →
Related Tools
View all →
LlamaChat LlamaChat is a free, open-source macOS app for chatting with local LLaMA, Alpaca, GPT4All and Vicuna models, with built-in model conversion and no cloud dependency. 
DeepEval by Confident AI - LLM Evaluation Framework Open-source LLM evaluation framework with 50+ plug-and-play metrics for AI agents, RAG, chatbots, and more. 
LangChain LangChain provides a comprehensive suite of products to support developers throughout their entire development workflow. 
Claude Claude is an AI assistant made by Anthropic that answers questions, writes and edits text, analyzes documents, and helps with coding through natural conversation. 
Gemini Google's AI assistant that helps with writing, planning, brainstorming, learning, and coding, available on the web and mobile through a Google account.