91 points Olshansky | 1 comments | 15 Jul 25 15:17 UTC | HN request time: 0.619s | source

What I’m asking HN:

What does your actually useful local LLM stack look like?

I’m looking for something that provides you with real value — not just a sexy demo.

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After a recent internet outage, I realized I need a local LLM setup as a backup — not just for experimentation and fun.

My daily (remote) LLM stack:

  - Claude Max ($100/mo): My go-to for pair programming. Heavy user of both the Claude web and desktop clients.

  - Windsurf Pro ($15/mo): Love the multi-line autocomplete and how it uses clipboard/context awareness.

  - ChatGPT Plus ($20/mo): My rubber duck, editor, and ideation partner. I use it for everything except code.

Here’s what I’ve cobbled together for my local stack so far:

Tools

  - Ollama: for running models locally

  - Aider: Claude-code-style CLI interface

  - VSCode w/ continue.dev extension: local chat & autocomplete

Models

  - Chat: llama3.1:latest

  - Autocomplete: Qwen2.5 Coder 1.5B

  - Coding/Editing: deepseek-coder-v2:16b

Things I’m not worried about:

  - CPU/Memory (running on an M1 MacBook)

  - Cost (within reason)

  - Data privacy / being trained on (not trying to start a philosophical debate here)

I am worried about:

  - Actual usefulness (i.e. “vibes”)

  - Ease of use (tools that fit with my muscle memory)

  - Correctness (not benchmarks)

  - Latency & speed

Right now: I’ve got it working. I could make a slick demo. But it’s not actually useful yet.

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Who I am

  - CTO of a small startup (5 amazing engineers)

  - 20 years of coding (since I was 13)

  - Ex-big tech

1. codybontecou ◴[15 Jul 25 16:38 UTC] No.44573054[source]▶

>>44572043 (OP) #

It seems like you have a decent local stack in place. Unfortunately these systems feel leagues behind Claude Clode and the current SOTA agentic coding. But they're great for referencing simple search like syntax.

Where I've found the most success with local models is with image generation, text-to-speech, and text-to-text translations.

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Ask HN: What's Your Useful Local LLM Stack?