# Off Grid

15 Hacker News commenters recommended Off Grid and 6 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Free, MIT-licensed app that runs AI models offline on phones and laptops, valued for privacy and easy setup. Caveat: image generation sometimes needs network access.

## Why people recommend it

- Runs fully offline with no cloud (3 comments): "Just downloaded it and wow—this is the future. It's incredible to have this much power fully offline." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47022185)) "No internet or cloud needed. Amazing work" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48728126)) "runs open models on the desktop/laptop you already have and picks ones that fit its memory, free and offline" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50286374))
- Privacy is the main draw (2 comments): "The privacy angle is the real killer feature here IMO." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47020948)) "Real speed and privacy wins if Pixel 9 pushed true offline AI like this instead." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47147901))
- Easy to set up (2 comments): "The app is basically just a wrapper that makes it super easy to set this up" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47021433)) "Getting it setup was easy." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47020689))
- Free and MIT-licensed open source (2 comments): "The whole thing is MIT licensed - happy to answer anything about the architecture." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47238566)) "runs open models on the desktop/laptop you already have and picks ones that fit its memory, free and offline" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50286374))

## What people warn about

- Errors and bugs on some Android phones (3 comments): "something went wrong doing NPU image generation on my phone" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47022530)) "It loops with an error message needing access to DSP ?" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47030837)) "I can confirm this bug on a Samsung S24 Ultra." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47020707))
- Image generation weak or needs network (2 comments): "The Apps works fine for text generation, but not for image generation: it needs network access" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47029790)) "I find the image generation models rather lacking." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48347640))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [llama.cpp](https://hackerapproved.com/p/llama-cpp.md): 471 recommend
- [Ollama](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ollama.md): 350 recommend
- [LM Studio](https://hackerapproved.com/p/lm-studio.md): 217 recommend
- [DS4 by antirez](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ds4.md): 109 recommend
- [Unsloth Studio](https://hackerapproved.com/p/unsloth.md): 94 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Off Grid", https://hackerapproved.com/p/off-grid/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).