Apple Silicon AI

Running and serving language, speech and vision models on Macs with M-series chips, from the array framework up to the applications that wrap it. Useful for anyone building a local or cluster-based inference setup on macOS rather than renting GPUs.

10 tools · updated Nov 2, 2026 · compare the first four

Tools in this collection

1. 1
   M

   MLX

   Apple Inc. · Apple Silicon ML & MLX

   In-depth entry

   Apple's array framework with unified-memory semantics; the foundation for most native Apple Silicon ML work.

   MITOpen sourceFreeLocalNov 2, 2026
2. 2
   ML

   MLX LM

   Apple Inc. · Apple Silicon ML & MLX

   In-depth entry

   Generation, quantization and fine-tuning of language models on top of MLX, with Hugging Face Hub integration.

   MITOpen sourceFreeLocalNov 2, 2026
3. 3
   MW

   MLX Whisper

   Apple Inc. · Apple Silicon ML & MLX

   Speech-to-text with Whisper models ported to MLX; practical for transcribing lectures and meetings locally.

   MITOpen sourceFreeLocalNov 2, 2026
4. 4
   L

   llama.cpp

   ggml-org (Georgi Gerganov and contributors) · Local LLM inference & serving

   In-depth entry

   Portable C/C++ inference with Metal acceleration and the GGUF format; the other mature path for local LLMs on a Mac.

   MITOpen sourceFreeLocalSelf-hostedNov 2, 2026
5. 5
   O

   Ollama

   Ollama · Local LLM inference & serving

   In-depth entry

   The simplest way to pull and serve open models locally behind an HTTP API.

   MITOpen sourceFreeLocalSelf-hostedNov 2, 2026
6. 6
   LS

   LM Studio

   Element Labs, Inc. · Local LLM inference & serving

   In-depth entry

   Desktop application for discovering, downloading and chatting with local models.

   ProprietaryFreemiumPaidLocalBroken
7. 7
   CM

   Core ML

   Apple Inc. · Apple Silicon ML & MLX

   Apple's on-device inference framework for shipping models inside macOS and iOS apps.

   BSD-3-ClauseFreeLocalNov 2, 2026
8. 8
   FM

   Foundation Models (Apple)

   Apple Inc. · Apple Silicon ML & MLX

   The system language model exposed to Swift apps on Apple platforms.

   ProprietaryFreeLocalNov 2, 2026
9. 9
   HF

   Hugging Face Hub

   Hugging Face · Training & fine-tuning

   In-depth entry

   Where the model weights come from; MLX and GGUF conversions are published there.

   MixedFreemiumPaidLocalNov 2, 2026
10. 10
    E

    exo

    Exo Labs · Distributed & parallel computing

    Experimental distributed inference across several Apple devices.

    Apache-2.0Open sourceFreeLocalSelf-hostedNov 2, 2026