BYOAIK — Bring Your Own AI Key: a directory of AI tools that run on your own API key.

PocketPal AI

iOS and Android app running GGUF models fully on-device — chat offline with no key and no subscription.

Website Source code

Category:
Local AI Tools
Pricing:
Open Source
Open source:
Yes (MIT)
Self-hostable:
No
Local-first:
Yes
Platforms:
Mobile
AI providers (bring your own key):
Ollama, Hugging Face
API key storage:
No cloud key required for local model
Key risk level:
LOW
Trust score:
84/100

PocketPal AI is a free, open-source mobile app that downloads and runs quantised GGUF models such as Gemma, Qwen, Phi and Llama directly on the device using llama.cpp, with on-device text to speech. The README states the model lives on your phone and conversations never leave it, so there is no key field: download and inference both happen locally with CPU, GPU or NPU acceleration and it works in airplane mode. Available on the App Store and Google Play as well as buildable from source, with no subscription or paid tier to unlock the AI. MIT licensed, 7,932 stars, pushed the day before review.

Why this trust score (84/100)

Trust measures how the tool treats your API key and how much of that has been verified. It contains no popularity signal.

  • Key Safety 25/25 — No cloud key is needed at all — the model runs locally.
  • Request Routing 17/20 — Requests go straight from you to the AI provider.
  • Transparency 20/20 — Source is public under MIT, so anyone can check how the key is handled.
  • Privacy 11/15 — Local-first: it works without sending your data anywhere.
  • Maintenance 10/10 — Actively developed — commits within the last three months.
  • Verification Confidence 1/10 — Compiled from public documentation by an AI-assisted pass, not independently confirmed.

What was checked

Verification tier: RESEARCH_ASSISTED — derived from the evidence below, not set by hand.

  • [STRONG · SOURCE_SCAN] Supports a local model backend, so it can run with no cloud provider key at all. source
  • [CONFIRMED · SOURCE_SCAN] Most recent commit 2026-08-14 — about 0 month(s) ago. source

How your API key is handled

Key handling varies. Requests are sent directly to the AI provider.

Setup

Add your provider API key in settings and choose a model.