nomic-ai/gpt4all is an application that runs large language models (LLMs) locally and directly on ordinary desktops and laptops. The repository started on March 27, 2023, and the latest release posted on GitHub is v3.10.0.
It can be used without API calls or a GPU, and it provides installers for Windows, macOS, and Ubuntu as well as a community-maintained Flathub distribution. In Python, the gpt4all package leverages a llama.cpp implementation to load models and hold conversations, so it takes two forms: a desktop app and a library. The repository description states that you can run a local LLM on any device and that it is open source and permits commercial use. The code is written in C++ and the license is MIT. The star count shown on GitHub is 77354.
There are, however, points that cannot be verified. Of the score items, only momentum was measured as low at 2.6, and no novelty, technology, or quality scores were given. This record contains no performance figures and no benchmarks against other local LLM tools. Nor does it say what changed in v3.10.0. So this repository reads as a first candidate for anyone looking for a tool to run an LLM locally without a GPU. It is still too early to judge on the basis of performance comparisons.