Hugging Face launches HuggingChat beta for macOS as a desktop alternative to ChatGPT

Hugging Face has announced the beta release of HuggingChat for macOS, a native application designed to bring the capabilities of their free and open-source AI chatbot directly to Apple desktops. HuggingChat serves as an alternative to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, leveraging open-source language models for advanced AI conversations.

The macOS app features a simple and intuitive interface, with a context prompt window at the top and a flowing conversation thread below. Currently available on GitHub, the beta version offers basic features such as creating new chats and accessing settings. Although a plus button for image uploads is present, this functionality is not yet supported, but is planned for future updates.

Users can select from various models, including Llama 3.1, Mistral Nemo, Hermes 3, and Qwen 2.5, providing flexibility in their AI interactions.