ChatGPT knows the internet. Oswin knows your library.
Cloud assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are remarkable general-purpose tools. Oswin is something different: a private research assistant for your own documents, built to cite them properly and to stay on your computer.
Yours, not the internet's
Oswin answers from the books, papers and notes you chose, so the answer reflects your sources, not whatever a model absorbed from the web.
Citations you can hand in
Footnotes to the page in MLA, Chicago, APA, Turabian or SBL, written by the app from each document's details, with every quotation checked word for word.
Completely contained
After a one-time model download, Oswin works with no internet. Nothing you add or ask ever leaves your computer.
How Oswin compares
A fair summary as of October 2026. The cloud services change often, so check their own pages for the latest.
| Oswin AI | ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini | NotebookLM | Local chat apps LM Studio, Ollama, GPT4All | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where your documents go | Stay on your computer | Uploaded to the company's servers | Uploaded to Google's servers | Stay on your computer |
| Works with no internet | Yes, after the first start | No | No | Yes |
| Answers from your own documents | Yes, your whole library | Yes, from uploaded files | Yes, from uploaded sources | Basic document chat |
| Footnotes to the page, in MLA, Chicago, APA, Turabian or SBL | Yes, formatted by Oswin, not the AI | No | Links to sources, not academic footnotes | No |
| Quotations checked word for word | Yes | No | No | No |
| Can cite a source that doesn't exist | No: only your documents are cited | Can happen | Rare (cites your sources) | Can happen |
| Study aids, survey across sources, drafts with citations | Built in | Partly, by prompting | Study guides and summaries | No |
| Can act on your behalf (browse, run code, connect to apps) | No. It only reads and writes | Yes | Limited | Depends on setup |
| Account required | No | Yes | Yes (Google) | No |
| Price | Free; Unlimited $9 a month | Free tier; paid plans about $20 a month | Free tier; paid plans with Google AI plans | Free |
A safe AI that lives on your computer, and stays there.
The most advanced AI systems run in someone else's data centre, see what you send them, and increasingly act on your behalf: browsing, running code, connecting to your email and files. That power is useful, and it also raises real questions about privacy, security and control. Oswin takes the opposite approach.
- Nothing leaves your machine. No cloud, no account, no tracking. After the first start it makes no internet connections at all; turn Wi-Fi off and it works the same.
- It can't act, only answer. Oswin has no web browsing, no plugins, no access to your email or other apps, and it can't run programs. It reads the files you give it and writes text.
- A small, open model you can see. The model is a single file in Oswin's folder on your disk, from an openly licensed family (Qwen3, Apache 2.0). No hidden servers, no model updates you didn't choose.
- Confidential work stays confidential. Unpublished research, student essays, legal or medical notes, company documents: nothing is uploaded, so nothing can be stored, reviewed or used to train someone else's model.
- Family-friendly by default. A built-in filter declines harmful requests. It works offline too.
What "contained" means in Oswin
| Internet use | One download of the model (1.1 GB) on first start. Then none. |
|---|---|
| Where your data lives | One folder on your computer (~/.oswin). Delete it and it's gone. |
| Accounts and sign-in | None. |
| Telemetry and analytics | None. |
| What the AI can do | Read your documents and write text. Nothing else. |
| Who sees your questions | Only you. |
When to use which
Use Oswin when…
- the answer has to come from your sources: course readings, a book collection, research papers, case files, notes
- you need footnotes and a Works Cited you can hand in or publish
- the documents are private, unpublished or confidential
- you work offline, on a plane, in a library, in a secure office
- you want study notes from a whole book, or a survey of what several authors say
Use a cloud assistant when…
- you want the latest news or anything on the web
- the task is general: brainstorming, coding, maths, translation
- you need the most powerful model available and don't mind sending it your material
Many people use both: a cloud assistant for the open web, Oswin for their own library.
Less than half the price, and free to start.
The model runs on your own computer, so there's no server bill behind each answer. That's why Oswin can be free to use every day, and why Unlimited costs less than half of a typical $20-a-month AI subscription.
Every feature, a daily allowance, no account.
No daily limit, up to three of your computers.
And your documents go to their servers.
Try it on your own documents.
Free to download. Works offline. No account.