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Faraday.dev: AI Characters That Live on Your Own Machine

Faraday.dev (these days it goes by Backyard AI) is a desktop app that lets you chat with AI characters without shipping a single word to some far-off server. Download it, pick a model, and you're off. No API keys, no fiddly setup, no monthly bill just to say hello. Everything runs locally on your PC or Mac, which means your conversations stay yours. Privacy nerds love it. So do folks who just want roleplay and storytelling without the guardrails and lag of cloud chatbots. There's a cloud tier too, if your hardware wheezes under bigger models.

The homepage keeps things simple: a bold pitch about zero-config local AI, a download button front and center, and a quick tour of features like the character hub, where thousands of community-made personas wait to be grabbed. Scroll down and you'll hit model compatibility notes, tethering options for chatting from your phone, and links to the Discord community. Short page, clear message: install it and start talking.