Rowboat markets itself as "local-first," but if you look in the actual codebase, transcription is Deepgram cloud, voice is ElevenLabs, analytics is PostHog, and the LLM is a cloud API.
I had a hunch that would be the case. I'm always nervous pointing any AI tool at my email, browser, and finances. Any similar solution that's truly local-first?
Show HN: Rowboat – Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop
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Re: Show HN: Rowboat – Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop
#82Re: Show HN: Rowboat – Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop
#83This looks really great! Quick question, is there any support for using local models?
Re: Show HN: Rowboat – Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop
#84Re: Show HN: Rowboat – Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop
#85Rowboat markets itself as "local-first," but if you look in the actual codebase, transcription is Deepgram cloud, voice is ElevenLabs, analytics is PostHog, and the LLM is a cloud API.
I had a hunch that would be the case. I'm always nervous pointing any AI tool at my email, browser, and finances. Any similar solution that's truly local-first?
Re: Show HN: Rowboat – Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop
#861. cd 2. start_AI_agent_REPL 3. "hey AI, analyze the code base in this repo, and find any and all bugs related to 'e.g. porting from 32bit -> 64bit architecture', create work branches for the bug fixes, submit a PR at the repo site for each fix" 4. Goto 3.
I want to be able to treat my AI/ML assistant as a daemon I can turn on and off for any repo - I do not want it to be running all the time, I don't want an email interface to it, I don't want it to analyze my system to try to help me, I want it to be treated like any other system service I will enable and disable, per-directory, manually.
Everything else - the desktop app, the in-built browser, the Obsidian note-taking system - is pure noise, and it immediately disqualifies Rowboat from any investment on my part.
Just a simple daemon style approach, with a REPL, an interface to Git, and THAT IS ALL.
There will be a time and place for a whole new radical UI to AI/ML in my personal laboratory - that time is when I get a brand new machine dedicated just to AI/ML and only put things on it that I want to put on it. Not my personal machine, not my development machine - a machine that will only function as a junior AI/ML-based software developer in my team, with an interface to Git that is standard and battle-tested over years and years of actual work - and nothing else.
I know this tool is out there. I continue to swim through the junk to find it, however.
Rowboat is instantly disqualified from my environment by bringing in too many bells and whistles - all of it junk, because I will have to learn to manage it all anew, and that is not what I want in an AI/ML agent.
Anything which detracts from having AI/ML sandboxed as a daemon and its only interface through the current .git/config for the repo I'm applying it to, is noise and nonsense.
Re: Show HN: Rowboat – Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop
#87Re: Show HN: Rowboat – Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop
#88All I want in an AI is this: 1. cd 2. start_AI_agent_REPL 3. "hey AI, analyze the code base in this repo, and find any and all bugs related to 'e.g. porting from 32bit -> 64bit architecture', create work branches for the bug fixes, submit a PR at the repo site for each fix" 4. Goto 3. I want to be able to treat my AI/ML assistant as a daemon I can turn on and off for any repo - I do not want it to be running all the…
Re: Show HN: Rowboat – Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop
#89You mentioned Claude Code makes drafts. Does rowboat have a terminal area that is fully compatible with claude code? How does claude code then access my emails?