Local AI Without the Cloud: Ollama, Open WebUI, and Nine Models Benchmarked on a 16 GB Mac
Nine models, one Mac, zero cloud. We benchmarked LLMs from 3B to 12B parameters entirely on a MacBook Air 13" (Apple M4, 16 GB, 2025) — no discrete GPU, no API keys, no data leaving the network. The fastest model answered at 67 tokens/second. The most consistent had zero variance across 5 runs. Total cost for all testing: $0.00.