Best Offline AI Apps for iPhone: A Factual Comparison
Six iPhone apps that run a language model on the device itself, compared on the things that actually differ: whether they work with no connection, whether they need an account, how they charge, which devices they support, and which models they run.
This page is published by Polyaura, which develops Cloak — one of the six apps listed. Every figure below is taken from each app's own US App Store listing and was checked on August 6, 2026, so you can verify each row yourself. Apps are listed alphabetically, not ranked.
The short answer
All six apps below run a language model directly on your iPhone, and all of them can answer with no internet connection once their model files are downloaded. The meaningful differences are how they charge and how much setup they expect:
- Paid once, no subscription: Cloak: Private AI Chat ($0.99) and Private LLM ($4.99). Neither has in-app purchases.
- Free with no in-app purchases: PocketPal AI, Locally AI by LM Studio, and MLC Chat.
- Free with paid extras: Enclave, which adds optional cloud models through a paid Pro tier.
- Simplest setup: Cloak ships one model and downloads it for you. The others let you pick and manage models yourself, which is more flexible but requires you to know which model to choose.
- Widest device support: PocketPal AI (iOS 15.1+) reaches the oldest devices; Cloak (iOS 26.5+) requires the newest.
What "offline" means here
Every app in this comparison needs an internet connection once, to download model files — a model cannot appear on your phone without being transferred there. After that download, each of these apps generates responses locally, with no network connection required. That is the standard being used on this page.
This is different from apps marketed as "private" that still send your prompt to a company's server. If an app can answer in airplane mode, its model is running on your device. If it cannot, it is a cloud app regardless of how it is described. How to check whether an AI app is actually private covers this test in more detail.
Side-by-side comparison
| App | Price | In-app purchases | Runs offline after setup | Account | Minimum OS | Also on | Models |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloak: Private AI Chat Polyaura |
$0.99 one-time | None | Yes | Not required | iOS / iPadOS 26.5 | iPad | One built-in model, downloaded automatically |
| Enclave – Local AI Assistant Piotr Gorzelany |
Free | Yes — Pro tier and other items | Yes, with local models | Listing states no account for local use | iOS / iPadOS 17.5 | iPad, Mac, Vision Pro | Many open-source models; optional cloud models with Pro |
| Locally AI by LM Studio Element Labs Inc |
Free | None | Yes | Listing states no login | iOS / iPadOS 18.1 | iPad, Mac | Llama, Gemma, Qwen, DeepSeek and others via Apple MLX |
| MLC Chat Tianqi Chen |
Free | None | Yes | Not mentioned in listing | iOS / iPadOS 17.0 | iPad, Vision Pro | Open models via the MLC LLM project; listing states it is intended for non-commercial use |
| PocketPal AI Asghar Ghorbani |
Free | None | Yes | Not mentioned in listing | iOS / iPadOS 15.1 | iPad, Vision Pro | GGUF models searched and downloaded from Hugging Face |
| Private LLM – Local AI Chat Numen Technologies Limited |
$4.99 one-time | None | Yes | Not mentioned in listing | iOS / iPadOS 17.0 | iPad, Mac, Vision Pro | Many open-source models including Llama and Gemma families |
Prices are US App Store prices as of August 6, 2026 and may differ by region. "Account" reflects what each app's own App Store listing states; where a listing does not address it, the table says so rather than guessing.
The apps in detail
Cloak: Private AI Chat
Cloak is developed by Polyaura. It downloads one model on first launch and then runs entirely on the device, with no account and no subscription. At $0.99 it is the least expensive paid option here, and it has no in-app purchases.
Its design choice is deliberate simplicity: you do not choose a model, a quantization, or a context length. That suits someone who wants a working offline assistant without learning what a GGUF file is, and does not suit someone who wants to run a specific model. Its other real constraint is the OS requirement — iOS or iPadOS 26.5 — which is the highest in this comparison, so devices that cannot update that far are not supported.
Enclave – Local AI Assistant
Enclave is free to download and runs open-source models locally; its listing states there is no account, no cloud, and no data collection for local use. It also offers in-app purchases, including a Pro tier that adds optional cloud models from external AI providers. If your requirement is that nothing ever leaves the device, that is achievable with Enclave by staying on local models, but the cloud path exists in the app. It runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Vision Pro.
Locally AI by LM Studio
Locally AI is free with no in-app purchases and states that it requires no login and collects no data. It runs models such as Llama, Gemma, Qwen, and DeepSeek using Apple's MLX framework, which is tuned for Apple silicon. It requires iOS 18.1 or later and is also available on iPad and Mac.
MLC Chat
MLC Chat is the reference app for the open-source MLC LLM project. It is free, runs open models locally, and its listing notes it is intended for non-commercial purposes and that usable models depend on how much memory your device has. It is closer to a research demo than a polished consumer product, which is worth knowing before installing it.
PocketPal AI
PocketPal AI is free with no in-app purchases and lets you search Hugging Face for GGUF models from inside the app, download them, and switch between them. It has the lowest OS requirement here at iOS 15.1, which makes it the most likely to run on an older iPhone. The tradeoff is that you are responsible for choosing a model that fits your device.
Private LLM – Local AI Chat
Private LLM is a $4.99 one-time purchase with no in-app purchases, and its listing explicitly describes it as a one-time purchase with no subscription needed. It offers a large selection of open-source models and runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Vision Pro, making it the broadest platform coverage in this group.
How to choose
- You want it to just work, and to pay once: Cloak or Private LLM. Cloak is cheaper and simpler; Private LLM offers model choice and runs on more Apple platforms.
- You want to pick your own models: PocketPal AI, Locally AI, Private LLM, or Enclave.
- You have an older iPhone: check the minimum OS column first. PocketPal AI reaches back furthest.
- You want zero possibility of a cloud path in the app: prefer an app with no cloud tier at all.
- You are experimenting rather than relying on it: the free apps cost nothing to try.
How this comparison was compiled
Each row was taken from the app's own US App Store listing on August 6, 2026: the listed price, the presence or absence of an in-app purchases section, the stated minimum iOS and iPadOS versions, the supported Apple platforms, and the models named in the description. Statements about accounts reflect what each listing says. No performance benchmarks, output-quality rankings, or privacy audits are claimed here, because those would require testing that this page has not done. App Store listings change — check the current listing before buying.
Try Cloak
Cloak: Private AI Chat runs on your iPhone or iPad with no cloud, no account, and no subscription. One download, then it works anywhere.
