Pick Jan if
people who want a polished local chat app and will download a multi-GB model.
Read the Jan pageJan vs LM Studio
Our take
Pick Jan if people who want a polished local chat app and will download a multi-GB model. Pick LM Studio if people who want a local agent and may pay for hosted Kimi/GLM/DeepSeek when the box is too small. Skip Jan if people who only want a CLI runner (Ollama) or a multi-workspace RAG studio (AnythingLLM). Skip LM Studio if people who only want a CLI runner (Ollama) or a ChatGPT-style hosted seat (ChatGPT).
Best for
Jan Download a model and chat offline
LM Studio Run an open model on your machine (or LM Studio’s US cloud)
Free plan
Jan $0 · apache 2.0. You bring disk and (optionally) a GPU
LM Studio $0 · bionic Agent; local LLMs; offline voice; LM Link for 5 devices; limited web search
Lowest paid
Jan Not published by the vendor
LM Studio Bionic+ $20
Next step up
Jan
LM Studio Pro $100
Coding agent
Jan
LM Studio Bionic agent
Runs where
Jan Hosted
LM Studio Web, desktop; hosted
Watch out
Jan The first screen is a 4.7 GB download
LM Studio Cloud models need an account and credits
Last checked
Jan 2026-10-19 · jan.ai
LM Studio 2026-10-21 · lmstudio.ai/pricing
Which one, then?
Pick LM Studio if
people who want a local agent and may pay for hosted Kimi/GLM/DeepSeek when the box is too small.
Read the LM Studio page