Local-First AI: Why Your AI Agent Should Run on Your Machine
Cloud AI agents have a fundamental problem: your data leaves your control. Local-first AI keeps everything on your hardware.
The AI agent landscape is split between two approaches: cloud-hosted and local-first. Here is why local-first matters — and how Alice Agent makes it practical.
The Cloud Problem
When you use a cloud AI agent, your conversations, code, and data flow through someone else’s servers. Even with privacy policies, you are trusting a third party with potentially sensitive information.
The Local-First Advantage
A local-first AI agent runs on your hardware. Your data never leaves your machine unless you explicitly choose to send it to a model provider. Alice Agent takes this further:
- Model flexibility: Use OpenAI, Anthropic, or run entirely local with Ollama/llama.cpp
- Persistent local memory: All context stays on your disk
- No subscription: Open source, MIT licensed, free forever
- No vendor lock-in: Switch providers with one command
When Local-First Makes Sense
- You work with sensitive code or data
- You want to use AI without sending proprietary information to cloud providers
- You are building on infrastructure you control
- You want predictable costs (no per-token billing surprises)
The Hybrid Approach
Alice Agent supports a hybrid model: run the agent locally, but connect to cloud models when needed. Your data stays local; only the prompts and responses travel to the provider. You control what leaves your machine.
Getting Started
curl -fsSL https://alice-agent.stuko.dev/install.sh | bash
alice setup