Directory / Jan
Jan
What it does for you
A private desktop chat you can run on your own computer.
- Price
- Free, $0
- Open-source desktop app
- Runs
- On your computer
- Local models, works offline
- Platforms
- Mac, Windows, Linux
- Desktop app
- Extras
- Local API server
- Plus MCP tool support
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See it in the field
Stop Sharing Your Data! Run Your Own Private AI with Jan AI · Dr Lyndon Walker · Feb 16, 2026
What users say
Real quotes, copied word for word from public review pages. The good and the bad.
“First of all I love Jan app, very nice and neat, bunch of very useful settings, MCP servers, creating assistants for different use cases, etc, so using it as daily driver.”
“it's frustrating that every time I update the app the UI has been changed to be less functional and menus and buttons have moved.”
“thank you for developing such a great open-source, user-respecting AI workstation with native MCP support.”
“I keep going back to other apps, such as CherryStudio, because I am repeatedly annoyed by the fact that I cannot easily export a useful conversation I just had.”
“I love the projects feature and the fact that you allow assigning different assistants to each project, this is very useful to me”
“until the app completely freezes after 2-5 minutes, depending on the speed of token generation.”
Pricing and details
Free. Jan is an open-source desktop app you download and run at no charge; it runs AI models on your own computer. If you connect it to a paid cloud model, that provider bills you separately.
- Free trial or demo
- Free with no time limit.
- Who it's for
- Owners or office staff who want a private ChatGPT-style assistant that runs on their own computer and keeps documents off the cloud.
- Platforms
- Desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux.
- Setup and onboarding
- Download, install and pick a model inside the app; larger models need a capable computer.
- Contract
- None.
- Support
- Docs, GitHub issues and the community; no paid support line.
Main integrations
Last checked Oct 20, 2026. Sources: Jan website, Jan GitHub issues, Jan docs: custom endpoints (checked 2026-10-21), Jan docs: MCP (checked 2026-10-21).
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Photo: Kathleen Austin Kuhn / Pexels
Canonical profile: https://toolbeltindex.com/tools/jan