Nativ: Run AI models locally on your Mac
Prince Canuma, known for the MLX-VLM Python library for running vision-LLMs using MLX on Mac, has released a new project called Nativ. Nativ is a full macOS desktop application that wraps MLX, providing both a chat interface and a localhost API server for accessing models. The app automatically picks up MLX models that the user has already tried and that are present in their Hugging Face cache directory, which Simon Willison noted as a nice touch. Nativ is similar in shape to LM Studio, another popular local model runner. The announcement was made via a link post on Simon Willison's blog on July 21, 2026.
// why it matters
Nativ simplifies running AI models locally on Mac by integrating with existing MLX models and Hugging Face cache.