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

Witsy

BYOK desktop AI assistant and universal MCP client spanning chat, image, video, voice, and search

Website Source code

Category:

Desktop AI Assistants

Pricing:

Open Source

Open source:

Yes (AGPL-3.0)

Self-hostable:

No

Local-first:

Yes

Platforms:

Desktop

AI providers (bring your own key):

OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Azure OpenAI, OpenRouter, Groq, Mistral, Perplexity, DeepSeek, xAI Grok, Ollama, Hugging Face, Fireworks, Custom / OpenAI-compatible

API key storage:

Stored locally on device

Key risk level:

LOW

Trust score:

86/100

Witsy is an open-source (AGPL-3.0) Electron/Vue desktop AI assistant and universal Model Context Protocol (MCP) client for macOS, Windows, and Linux. It is explicitly a BYOK app: the README states "Witsy is a BYOK (Bring Your Own Keys) AI application: it means you need to have API keys for the LLM providers you want to use" (or run free local models via Ollama/LM Studio). It offers an unusually wide capability surface, all keyed by the user: chat with vision across OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, xAI Grok, Meta Llama, Mistral, DeepSeek, OpenRouter, Groq, Cerebras, Azure OpenAI, Ollama, LM Studio, and OpenAI-compatible endpoints; text-to-image and text-to-video (OpenAI, Google, xAI, Replicate, fal.ai, HuggingFace, Stable Diffusion WebUI); text-to-speech (OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Groq, fal.ai); speech-to-text/dictation (OpenAI Whisper, local Whisper, Groq, Fireworks, Gladia, nVidia, Speechmatics, Soniox, fal.ai); and internet search (Perplexity, Tavily, Brave, Exa, local Google). Additional features include RAG over local documents, MCP server integration, voice/realtime mode, Anthropic Computer Use, AI Commands, Prompt Anywhere, Experts, an HTTP API, a CLI, and agent webhooks. The project originated as nbonamy/witsy and has since moved to the Kochava-Studios organization (the old repo's README now reads "Witsy has a new home"); the canonical repo carries ~1,986 stars and 173 releases (latest v3.5.2). The witsyai.com domain currently 301-redirects to the GitHub repo rather than a standalone marketing site. Free and open source; users only pay their chosen providers.

How your API key is handled

Your API key is stored locally on your device. Requests are sent directly to the AI provider.

Setup

Open settings, paste your provider API key, choose a model, and start — the key stays on your device.