Two hundred models. I say that number out loud and people just glaze over. That is where our database sits right now, two hundred open-weight models, and it keeps growing. If your first instinct is to close the tab, honestly, that is the correct instinct. Nobody sane picks a model by reading two hundred model cards. Well. Almost nobody.
Start from the wrong end and you will drown. The people who do this well start from the machine, not the model. What GPU do you actually own? How much VRAM? A laptop, a desktop with one decent card, a little server in the corner? Answer those three questions and most of the two hundred just vanish. You are left with a shortlist you can actually evaluate instead of a catalog you cannot.
Then ask what the thing is for. Chat, coding, reasoning, these are different sports, and a model that is lovely at prose can be mediocre at code. Match the model to the job. Not the leaderboard. I know the leaderboard is tempting. It is also how people end up running a model that needs twice their VRAM and calling it the best. It is the best for somebody. Probably not you.
Benchmarks help, but only as a filter. They measure specific things under specific conditions, and that is it. Pick your shortlist from your hardware, test with your own prompts, and let the hands-on part decide.
Day to day, it is simpler than it sounds. Most people end up on a private AI console SaaS on the desktop, plus a local LLM management app for iOS and Android for checking in from the couch. You are not babysitting weights. You are chatting with something that lives in your house.
Want the shortcut? Our open source LLM benchmark database search holds all 200, filterable by the hardware you actually own: parameter counts, context windows, benchmark scores, memory needs. It is an open source LLM comparison that starts from your machine instead of the hype, which is how you find the best local LLM for you and not for someone's benchmark tweet. And if you would rather skip the setup entirely, I do private AI setup for businesses at privateaiagent.fyi. Your data never leaves.