Local AI on a MacBook Pro with 16 GB RAM: What Actually Works
Running AI coding assistants locally sounds appealing — no API costs, your code stays on your machine, and you get a Claude Code-like experience for free. But getting it to actually work well on a 16 GB MacBook Pro M1 takes more trial and error than most guides admit.
This post summarizes months of real-world testing across multiple tools, runtimes, and models. The conclusion surprised me.
