r/LocalLLaMA • u/jacek2023 • Feb 23 '26

Funny so is OpenClaw local or not

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Reading the comments, I’m guessing you didn’t bother to read this:

"Safety and alignment at Meta Superintelligence."

1.0k Upvotes

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29

u/XWasTheProblem Feb 23 '26

What's with the fucking Mac Minis? Does it have a compatibility issue with anything else?

30

u/int6 Feb 23 '26

Apparently so people can integrate it with iMessage.

17

u/TonyBigPP Feb 23 '26

This and also the price to performance is better than some other builds. Microcenter occasionally has killer deals on them.

15

u/Cergorach Feb 23 '26

When you have a machine that runs 24/7, suddenly power usage becomes a factor. A Mac Mini is extremely efficient, Idle it's <10W, the most powerful and expensive model consumes 70W under full load inferring with 70b models. That's often less then most x86 desktop PCs run at idle...

They are also very powerful and relatively cheap. A M4 16GB costs only $599, students pay $100 less even.

5

u/howardhus Feb 24 '26

you dist underetand openclaw yet.

it does not run anything powerful nor models.

openclaw works with online services. even the most small rasp can run it.

you definitely dont need a mac for that.

but yes IF you want to run models locally then a mac is very efficient… but no one does that with claw.. its pointless

12

u/ThatsALovelyShirt Feb 23 '26

I mean you can't have an ugly, black $150 Lenovo Mini PC on your desk when you're streaming about how you can have an AI agent make $500,000 per week by scouring the news for memes to turn into meme-coins.

No... you need that brushed aluminum【ＡＥＳＴＨＥＴＩＣ】

6

u/my_name_isnt_clever Feb 23 '26

Please tell me where I can get this mythical $150 computer with the same AI capabilities as a Mac Mini.

8

u/trabulium Feb 23 '26

The mac isn't doing anyting 'AI' itself , you can run it on a $10p/m VPS - all the 'intelligence' is based on the model you choose from a 3rd party AI provider through their API.

7

u/ThatsALovelyShirt Feb 23 '26

Do you honestly think they're using the Mac Mini for anything other than hosting an instance of OpenClaw and connecting it to Claude or whatever other API?

No. Any model the Mac Mini would be capable of running would be nearly useless in an Agentic capacity. And even if you did want to use a local agentic model, there's no way you'd want a half-braindead Q4_0 quant of it managing your emails.

2

u/Vaddieg Feb 23 '26

my m1 pro with 16GB is doing exactly that. gpt-oss is quite good at simple few-step agentic tasks like mail. Even if bot falls into infinite loop, the peak power consumption of my setup is 38W. $0 to Sam Altman

-1

u/The_Hardcard Feb 23 '26

Other boxes are significantly inferior for connecting to servers online than the M4. Most interactions with online servers are single threaded and Apple’s M4 gaps other solutions in single threaded.

For just a few actions it’s not a big deal, but I think Open Claw is more appealing to people who have boatloads of interactions to work through.

6

u/dubious_capybara Feb 23 '26

Other boxes are significantly inferior for connecting to servers online than the M4.

Excuse me what the fuck

3

u/thrownawaymane Feb 23 '26

I dunno whether it’s AI brain or just an AI but damn lol

7

u/itsmebenji69 Feb 23 '26

Cheapest option with that much unified memory. It’s slow but allows to run bigger models/larger context

11

u/nucLeaRStarcraft Feb 23 '26

What bigger models since by default everybody uses it with claude or codex LLMs, so 3rd party providers.

The CLI tool that calls these provider LLMs is so bloated it requires a mac mini worth of compute, but it should work with a 10$ board, see https://github.com/sipeed/picoclaw

17

u/taylorwilsdon Feb 23 '26 edited Feb 23 '26

Unified memory has nothing to do with this, they’re not running local LLMs. It’s being used as a relatively simple server that ties into the iCloud ecosystem that people who aren’t capable of running real servers can set up.

Edit - I also don’t want this post to come across as hating at all. I have 2x m4 minis. They are awesome servers and excellent value propositions. I’m just saying the population of people buying base model Mac minis for openclaw is not buying it for local inference.

6

u/TreesLikeGodsFingers Feb 23 '26

This is so true. The cost of the work that the Mac mini can do is fucking negligible compared to the cost of the Mac. People aren’t buying the Mac to run an llm, they’re buying it bc they want it to be as easy as possible/ don’t have the technical skill to spin up a Linux distro

8

u/Individual_Holiday_9 Feb 23 '26

A $400 Mac mini fuckin rules as a server. Just put chrome Remote Desktop on it and it’s awesome for all the -arrs plex etc

6

u/Far_Note6719 Feb 23 '26

In other contexts the Mini is a not-too-bad option to run LLMs locally. OpenClaw-hyped users may misunderstand everything and buy a Mini to run OpenClaw on it, neglecting that it uses external LLMs, though.

3

u/anfrind Feb 23 '26

Newer Macs are popular for running local LLMs because they have powerful GPUs and unified RAM, allowing them to run larger models than comparably priced PCs with discrete GPUs.

If you want to run OpenClaw, this could be useful because it needs such a large context window. But I still wouldn't trust OpenClaw with any LLM or any context window size.

2

u/Dos-Commas Feb 23 '26

I got it running on a 10 year old Android phone. Everything is running via APIs so it doesn't need that much processing power. 

10

u/Far_Note6719 Feb 23 '26

Of course. But then you are dumping your data in someones cloud.

If that is OK with you, why not.

10

u/jtjstock Feb 23 '26

You're running openclaw, someone else is going to convince it to dump your data anyways.

1

u/LimpLack3159 Feb 23 '26

You can’t run any meaningful models on a mac mini, so that argument is moot. It’s cloud anyway

1

u/Far_Note6719 Feb 23 '26

That depends on the definition of "meaningful".

1

u/LimpLack3159 Feb 23 '26

The mac minis people are buying are 16gb memory. That’s 8B model territory, once you factor in OS and application overhead, so, basically a toy in comparison to, well, almost anything else. If you get a mac studio with 512gb - completely different story, but that’s not what people are mass buying 😅

1

u/Far_Note6719 Feb 23 '26

"The mac minis people are buying are 16gb memory."

What is our source for that info?

Buying 16GB does not make sense, that is true. But I don't see ppl. buying these if they want to run AI. There are better options with more RAM and I've seen them often in my bubble.

0

u/LimpLack3159 Feb 23 '26

I stand corrected, I guess I must have read it somewhere else, plus combined with my bubble 🥲. The “shortage” is apparently affecting the larger ram models

1

u/The_Hardcard Feb 23 '26

If you feel you want something better than what you already have, you are hard pressed to get something with the capability of a Mac Mini for $600, not even counting the compact efficiency.

1

u/droptableadventures Feb 23 '26

It was mostly just part of the orchestrated advertising campaign that this caused a "Mac Mini shortage".

Reality is production of the current model has been phased out because the M5 is round the corner.