Magnitude

What is Magnitude?

Magnitude is an open source inference engine that runs open-weight AI models on your own computer. It ships as a desktop app that tunes its kernels to your exact chip, then connects the model to coding agents you already use. Prompts and files stay local, with no internet needed after download.

Top Features:

• Hardware tuning: tunes kernels on your device to run up to 2x faster than llama.cpp.
• Agent connections: one click links Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cline, Hermes, and more.
• Model picks: reads your chip and memory, then suggests models with estimated speeds.

Use Cases:

• Private coding: run a coding agent on local models so source code never leaves.
• Lower API bills: swap paid cloud tokens for open models on hardware you own.
• Offline work: keep an AI assistant running on flights or in air-gapped networks.

Who Can Use Magnitude?

• Developers: pair their favorite coding agent with fast local models at no cost.
• Security teams: keep prompts, files, and models inside their own machines and networks.
• ML engineers: compare open-weight model speeds on Apple Silicon, NVIDIA, AMD, or CPU.

Pricing

• Desktop app (free): download for macOS, Windows, or Linux with no account needed.
• Source code (free): the full engine is open source under the Apache 2.0 license.
• Model usage (free): no token costs because models run on your own hardware.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Speed: published benchmarks show up to 92% faster decoding on Mac hardware.
• Privacy: prompts and files stay local once a model has been downloaded.
• Memory use: about 27% less memory per agent, freed as soon as agents stop.

Cons:

• No built-in agent: you still need a separate agent or app to use models.
• Hardware limits: smaller machines can only run smaller models with weaker output.
• Model coverage: optimized kernels target popular open-weight families rather than every model.

FAQs:

1) How does it differ from Ollama?

It tunes kernels on your exact chip instead of shipping generic precompiled kernels.

2) What hardware does it need?

Any Apple Silicon, NVIDIA, or AMD GPU, or simply a CPU on its own.

3) Which agents can connect?

Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cline, Hermes, plus any OpenAI-compatible tool.

4) Does it need internet access?

Only to download models, and after that everything runs fully offline.

5) Is it really free?

Yes, it is open source under Apache 2.0 with no subscription fees.