Documentation
Overview

Jan

Jan's Cover Image

Jan is an AI chat application that runs 100% offline on your desktop & mobile (coming soon). Our goal is to make it easy for anyone, with or without coding skills, to download and use AI models with full control and privacy (opens in a new tab).

Jan is powered by Cortex (opens in a new tab), our embeddable local AI engine which provides an OpenAI-compatible API that can run in the background at https://localhost:1337 (or a custom port). This enables you to power other applications running locally with AI capabilities. For example, you can connect tools like Continue.dev (opens in a new tab) and Cline (opens in a new tab), or any OpenAI-compatible app, to Jan and start coding on their supported editors using models hosted in Jan.

Jan doesn't limit you to locally hosted models, meaning, you can create an API key from your favorite model provider and add it to Jan via the configuration's page and start talking to your favorite paid models.

Features

Philosophy

Jan is built to be user-owned, this means that Jan is:

💡

You can read more about our philosophy here.

Inspirations

Jan is inspired by the concepts of Calm Computing (opens in a new tab), and the Disappearing Computer.

Acknowledgements

Jan is built on the shoulders of many upstream open-source projects:

FAQs

What is Jan?

Jan is a customizable AI assistant that runs offline on your computer - a privacy-focused alternative to tools like ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, and Google Gemini, with optional cloud AI support.

How do I get started with Jan?

Download Jan on your computer, download a model or add API key for a cloud-based one, and start chatting. For detailed setup instructions, see our Quick Start guide.

Is Jan compatible with my system?

Jan supports all major operating systems, Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Hardware compatibility includes:

  • NVIDIA GPUs (CUDA)
  • AMD GPUs (Vulkan)
  • Intel Arc GPUs (Vulkan)
  • Any GPU with Vulkan support
How does Jan protect my privacy?

Jan prioritizes privacy by:

  • Running 100% offline with locally-stored data
  • Using open-source models that keep your conversations private
  • Storing all files and chat history on your device in the Jan Data Folder
  • Never collecting or selling your data
⚠️

When using third-party cloud AI services through Jan, their data policies apply. Check their privacy terms.

You can optionally share anonymous usage statistics to help improve Jan, but your conversations are never shared. See our complete Privacy Policy.

What models can I use with Jan?
  • Download optimized models from Jan Hub
  • Import GGUF models from Hugging Face or your local files
  • Connect to cloud providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral and Groq (requires your own API keys)
Is Jan really free? What's the catch?

Jan is completely free and open-source with no subscription fees for local models and features. When using cloud-based models (like GPT-4o or Claude Sonnet 3.7), you'll only pay the standard rates to those providers—we add no markup.

Can I use Jan offline?

Yes! Once you've downloaded a local model, Jan works completely offline with no internet connection needed.

How can I customize or extend Jan?

Jan has an extensible architecture similar to VSCode and Obsidian. You can build custom features using our extensions API, which powers many of Jan's core features.

How can I contribute or get community help?
Can I self-host Jan?

Yes! We fully support the self-hosted movement. Either download Jan directly or fork and build from our GitHub repository (opens in a new tab).

What does Jan stand for?

Jan stands for "Just a Name". We are, admittedly, bad at marketing 😂.

Are you hiring?

Yes! We love hiring from our community. Check out our open positions at Careers (opens in a new tab).

Quickstart