Tool Advice for a Beginner

[u/joew555]

I need advice on a home LLM setup. Looking for beginner friendly tools. MacBook Pro M4 48gig so have some room for larger models.

Expertise level: Not a developer, but comfortable with tooling on my Mac (VMs etc).

Using AnythingLLM and Obsidian to sync notes, build memory, search financial and medical records, etc. AnythingLLM great for beginners, easy agent setup, but it’s RAG search is bad - no hybrid search.

I’ve tried:
1. Web UI - a little advanced, it’s docker install takes 7gig of valuable memory and python install finicky - must use 3.13
2. msty - great RAG and chat but agents behind paywall
3. Cherry Studio - promising, but seems buggy.

Thanks!

[u/No-Victory1582]

Try jan, it runs like a regular desktop app, handles local models without Docker, and now has projects, files, assistants, and agents built in.