DeepSeek released DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 on 17 October 2026. It replaces the September V4.1-Flash on DeepSeek's website, app and API, and its weights are on Hugging Face under the MIT licence. Within a week it was the most-trending model on the site. This guide covers what actually changed, what it takes to run the weights on your own hardware, and when the API is the more … [Read more...] about DeepSeek V4.1-Flash-1017: What Changed, and the Memory It Takes Locally
Local AI & Tech Guides
Practical guides to running AI on your own hardware. We cover local LLMs end to end — how much RAM and VRAM you actually need, which runner to use, how quantization changes the maths, and which GPUs, Macs and handhelds are worth buying. Every speed figure here is a clearly labelled estimate, never a lab claim.
Pair these guides with our free AI tools: the VRAM calculator, the hardware matrix and the model directory.
Best Local Image Generation Models in 2026: VRAM and Licences Compared
There are more open image generation models worth running locally in 2026 than ever, and they differ far more in memory and licence than in the basics. Some are free for any use, some only below a revenue threshold, and some are research-only. Some fit an 8GB graphics card; one needs more than 100GB at full precision. This guide compares 15 models side by side on those two … [Read more...] about Best Local Image Generation Models in 2026: VRAM and Licences Compared
ACE-Step: Generate Music Locally in ComfyUI
ACE-Step is an open-source music generation model: give it a style description and lyrics, and it produces a full song with vocals, on your own computer. Version 1.5, released on 23 January 2026, is the one to use now, with a larger "XL" version added in April. It runs in ComfyUI or in ACE-Step's own app, and its weights are MIT-licensed. This guide covers which model to … [Read more...] about ACE-Step: Generate Music Locally in ComfyUI
oMLX: A Local LLM Server for Apple Silicon Macs
oMLX is an open-source server for running language models on Apple Silicon Macs, built on Apple's MLX framework and managed from a menu bar app. It appeared in February 2026 and has gathered about 22,900 stars on GitHub, which makes it one of the most-watched local AI projects on the Mac this year. Its pitch is narrower than Ollama's or LM Studio's: it is built for long, … [Read more...] about oMLX: A Local LLM Server for Apple Silicon Macs
Gemma 4 12B vs Qwen3.5 9B: Which Small Local Model to Run
If you have a graphics card with 8 to 16GB of memory and want one general-purpose local model, two releases from 2026 are the obvious candidates: Google's Gemma 4 12B and Alibaba's Qwen3.5 9B. Both are Apache 2.0, both read images as well as text, both have a 256K-token context window and a thinking mode, and both download in 6.6 to 8GB through Ollama. They are built … [Read more...] about Gemma 4 12B vs Qwen3.5 9B: Which Small Local Model to Run
n8n vs Make vs Zapier: What Each Costs at Your Task Volume
n8n, Make and Zapier all connect your apps and run automated workflows, and all three have a free tier and paid plans from about $10 to $30 a month. The plans are not comparable at face value, though, because each one counts usage in a different unit. The same workflow can use 1 unit on n8n, 6 on Make and 5 on Zapier. This guide explains what each one bills for, then prices … [Read more...] about n8n vs Make vs Zapier: What Each Costs at Your Task Volume
Z-Image Turbo Locally: Files, VRAM and Settings in ComfyUI
Z-Image-Turbo is the 6-billion-parameter image model from Alibaba's Tongyi Lab, released on 26 November 2025. Nearly a year later it is still one of the most-used image models in ComfyUI: Comfy-Org's repackaged files were downloaded about 9.2 million times in the past month, more than any other Comfy-Org repository except MiniMax-H3 and Qwen-Image 2.1. Three things explain … [Read more...] about Z-Image Turbo Locally: Files, VRAM and Settings in ComfyUI
Radeon RX 7900 XTX for Local AI in 2026: 24GB, ROCm and What Fits
The Radeon RX 7900 XTX is AMD's 24GB gaming flagship from December 2022, and it is still the Radeon most often considered for running AI at home. 24GB is the capacity where most open models become usable at full quality, and it is the same amount of memory as an RTX 4090 or RTX 3090. This guide covers what fits in that 24GB, how fast it runs compared with NVIDIA's 24GB cards, … [Read more...] about Radeon RX 7900 XTX for Local AI in 2026: 24GB, ROCm and What Fits
Krea 2 Locally: Open Weights, VRAM and What the Licence Allows
Krea 2 is the open image model from Krea, the AI image company, released on 18 June 2026 in two versions: Raw, an undistilled base for training, and Turbo, an 8-step model for generating. Comfy-Org's repackaged files for ComfyUI have been downloaded about 3.4 million times in the past month, making it one of the most-used open image models of 2026. It is also the strictest of … [Read more...] about Krea 2 Locally: Open Weights, VRAM and What the Licence Allows
Claude Code With a Local Model: Running It on Ollama
Claude Code is Anthropic's coding agent for the terminal, and it normally talks to Anthropic's models. Since Ollama added an Anthropic-compatible API, it can also run against a model on your own machine: ollama launch claude sets it up in one command. It is one of the rising "ollama" searches this month, and there are limits you should know before relying on it. This guide … [Read more...] about Claude Code With a Local Model: Running It on Ollama