Cherry Studio: AI Desktop Client for Multi-LLM Chat
CherryHQ/cherry-studio
Cherry Studio is a free, open-source desktop client that puts multiple LLM providers, local models, and 300+ built-in assistants behind one chat window instead of a browser full of tabs. Reach for it if you want one native app for Windows, Mac, or Linux that talks to cloud APIs and a local Ollama or LM Studio model in the same conversation. Skip it if you need a mobile app today — Android and iOS are still roadmap items, not shipped features.
What is Cherry Studio?
Cherry Studio is a desktop chat client for Windows, Mac, and Linux that connects to several LLM providers — OpenAI, Gemini, and Anthropic in the cloud, plus Ollama or LM Studio for models on your own machine — from one interface. It ships with 300+ pre-configured AI assistants, lets you build custom ones, and runs multi-model conversations side by side so you can compare providers without switching apps.
Key Capabilities and Integrations
- ✓Connects to major cloud LLM providers — OpenAI, Gemini, and Anthropic among them — plus web services like Claude, Perplexity, and Poe, per the README's provider list.
- ✓Runs local models through Ollama and LM Studio, so a conversation can stay off any cloud API entirely.
- ✓Ships with 300+ pre-configured AI assistants and a builder for creating your own.
- ✓Supports multi-model simultaneous conversations — send one prompt to several models and compare the replies side by side.
- ✓Processes text, images, Office files, and PDFs, and renders Mermaid charts and syntax-highlighted code inside the chat.
- ✓Backs up and syncs data over WebDAV instead of a proprietary cloud account.
- ✓Bundles an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server.
- ✓Builds for Windows, Mac, and Linux ship ready to run, with no separate environment setup, per the README.
Practical Applications for AI Productivity
- •Comparing how different providers answer the same question by running a multi-model conversation instead of pasting one prompt into several browser tabs.
- •Keeping sensitive prompts on your own machine by routing them to a local model through Ollama or LM Studio rather than a cloud API.
- •Building a reusable assistant for a repeated task — a code-review persona or a translation assistant — on top of the 300+ presets instead of rewriting the system prompt every session.
- •Reading and discussing PDFs, Office documents, or images by attaching them directly in the chat rather than switching to a separate reader.
- •Wiring the assistant into external tools through its MCP server support, for workflows that go beyond plain chat replies.
Getting Started with Cherry Studio
The README doesn't walk through desktop install steps for Windows, Mac, or Linux specifically — the 'Getting Started' section it includes is actually aimed at code contributors (fork the repo, create a branch, open a pull request), not end users installing the app. What it does confirm is that builds are published to the project's GitHub Releases page and that the app is ready to use with no separate environment setup required. Beyond that, OS-specific install steps (installer type, code signing, Linux package format) aren't clearly documented in the material available here.
Who Benefits from Cherry Studio?
Cherry Studio fits people juggling more than one LLM subscription who want one native app instead of several browser tabs — developers testing prompts against OpenAI, Gemini, and Anthropic side by side, or anyone who also runs a local model through Ollama and wants it in the same chat history as their cloud accounts. It also fits small teams evaluating the Enterprise Edition for centralized model access and a shared knowledge base, though that tier isn't free like the Community Edition. It's a weaker fit if you only ever use one provider through its own official app — the multi-provider switching is the entire point, and a single-model workflow won't touch most of what's here.
Strengths
- ✓Ships 300+ ready-made assistants plus a way to build your own, so you're not starting from a blank system prompt every session.
- ✓Talks to both cloud providers and local runtimes (Ollama, LM Studio) from the same window, so a sensitive prompt can stay off the network when that matters.
- ✓AGPL-3.0 licensing explicitly permits commercial use, as long as you comply with its terms.
- ✓Multi-model simultaneous conversations let you compare providers' answers side by side instead of running the same prompt twice in different tabs.
- ✓Desktop builds for Windows, Mac, and Linux are ready to run with no separate environment setup, per the README.
Considerations and Current Gaps
- △Several capabilities are still on the roadmap rather than shipped — the README lists OCR, text-to-speech, a plugin system, and Android/iOS apps as Phase 1 or roadmap items, not features you can use today.
- △AGPL-3.0 is a strong copyleft license — modify Cherry Studio and offer it as a hosted service, and you're obligated to publish your changes, which is why the project also sells a separate commercial license for teams that don't want that obligation.
- △Enterprise Edition pricing isn't published anywhere in the README — it's described as either a one-time buyout or a recurring subscription, and getting an actual number means emailing the sales contact.
- △The Enterprise Edition's admin console and centralized model management aren't part of the open-source Community Edition — the README's comparison table shows that tier going out to only a subset of customers rather than being released as open source.
Other LLM Management Tools
Frequently Asked Questions
Cherry Studio is a native desktop app for Windows, Mac, and Linux, according to the README.
Cherry Studio connects to major cloud services including OpenAI, Gemini, and Anthropic, web integrations like Claude, Perplexity, and Poe, and local models through Ollama or LM Studio, per the README's feature list.
Cherry Studio's Community Edition is licensed under AGPL-3.0, which the README says permits commercial use as long as you comply with the license terms; a separate commercial license without those obligations is available by contacting the project.
Custom assistant creation is a listed feature in Cherry Studio, on top of the 300+ assistants it ships with already configured.
Cherry Studio Enterprise Edition adds centralized model management, a shared knowledge base, and role-based access control for private deployment, priced as a buyout or subscription rather than published rates.
Cherry Studio's interface is translated into 20 languages, including English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, and Vietnamese, per the README's language list.
The problem it solves
Anyone talking to more than one LLM provider tends to end up with a browser full of separate tabs — ChatGPT in one, Claude.ai in another, a local Ollama instance somewhere else — each with its own history and no way to run the same prompt through two models at once. Cherry Studio's specific answer is a single desktop client that holds the provider connections, the 300+ assistant presets, and the local-model bridge in one place, so a prompt and its context don't have to be copy-pasted between apps just to compare a cloud model against one running on your own machine.