Run LLMs, VLMs, and image generation models entirely on your Mac.
OpenAI + Anthropic + Ollama compatible API. No cloud. No API keys. No data leaving your machine.
Quickstart โข Models โข Features โข Image Gen โข API โข Desktop App โข JANG โข CLI โข Config โข Contributing โข ํ๊ตญ์ด
JANG 2-bit destroys MLX 4-bit on MiniMax M2.5:
Quantization MMLU (200q) Size JANG_2L (2-bit) 74% 89 GB MLX 4-bit 26.5% 120 GB MLX 3-bit 24.5% 93 GB MLX 2-bit 25% 68 GB Adaptive mixed-precision keeps critical layers at higher precision. Scores at jangq.ai. Models at JANGQ-AI.
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| Chat with any MLX model -- thinking mode, streaming, and syntax highlighting | Agentic chat with full coding capabilities -- tool use and structured output |
Published on PyPI as vmlx -- install and run in one command:
# Recommended: uv (fast, no venv hassle)
brew install uv
uv tool install vmlx
vmlx serve mlx-community/Qwen3-8B-4bit
# Or: pipx (isolates from system Python)
brew install pipx
pipx install vmlx
vmlx serve mlx-community/Qwen3-8B-4bit
# Or: pip in a virtual environment
python3 -m venv ~/.vmlx-env && source ~/.vmlx-env/bin/activate
pip install vmlx
vmlx serve mlx-community/Qwen3-8B-4bitNote: On macOS 14+, bare
pip installfails with "externally-managed-environment". Useuv,pipx, or a venv.
Your local AI server is now running at http://0.0.0.0:8000 with an OpenAI + Anthropic compatible API. Works with any model from mlx-community -- thousands of models ready to go.
Get MLX Studio -- a native macOS app with chat UI, model management, image generation, and developer tools. No terminal required. Just download the DMG and drag to Applications.
from openai import OpenAI
client = OpenAI(base_url="http://localhost:8000/v1", api_key="not-needed")
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="local",
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}],
stream=True,
)
for chunk in response:
print(chunk.choices[0].delta.content or "", end="", flush=True)import anthropic
client = anthropic.Anthropic(base_url="http://localhost:8000/v1", api_key="not-needed")
message = client.messages.create(
model="local",
max_tokens=1024,
messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}],
)
print(message.content[0].text)curl http://localhost:8000/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "local",
"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}],
"stream": true
}'vMLX runs any MLX model. Point it at a HuggingFace repo or local path and go.
| Type | Models |
|---|---|
| Text LLMs | Qwen 2/2.5/3/3.5, Llama 3/3.1/3.2/3.3/4, Mistral/Mixtral, Gemma 3, Phi-4, DeepSeek, GLM-4, MiniMax, Nemotron, StepFun, and any mlx-lm model |
| Vision LLMs | Qwen-VL, Qwen3.5-VL, Pixtral, InternVL, LLaVA, Gemma 3n |
| MoE Models | Qwen 3.5 MoE (A3B/A10B), Mixtral, DeepSeek V2/V3, MiniMax M2.5, Llama 4 |
| Hybrid SSM | Nemotron-H, Jamba, GatedDeltaNet (Mamba + Attention) |
| Image Gen | Flux Schnell/Dev, Z-Image Turbo (via mflux) |
| Image Edit | Qwen Image Edit (via mflux) |
| Embeddings | Any mlx-lm compatible embedding model |
| Reranking | Cross-encoder reranking models |
| Audio | Kokoro TTS, Whisper STT (via mlx-audio) |
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Continuous Batching | Handle multiple concurrent requests efficiently |
| Prefix Cache | Reuse KV states for repeated prompts -- makes follow-up messages instant |
| Paged KV Cache | Block-based caching with content-addressable deduplication |
| KV Cache Quantization | Compress cached states to q4/q8 for 2-4x memory savings |
| Disk Cache (L2) | Persist prompt caches to SSD -- survives server restarts |
| Block Disk Cache | Per-block persistent cache paired with paged KV cache |
| Speculative Decoding | Small draft model proposes tokens for 20-90% speedup |
| Prompt Lookup Decoding | No draft model needed โ reuses n-gram matches from the prompt/context. Best for structured or repetitive output (code, JSON, schemas). Enable with --enable-pld. |
| JIT Compilation | mx.compile Metal kernel fusion (experimental) |
| Hybrid SSM Support | Mamba/GatedDeltaNet layers handled correctly alongside attention |
Request -> Tokens
|
L1: Memory-Aware Prefix Cache (or Paged Cache)
| miss
L2: Disk Cache (or Block Disk Store)
| miss
Inference -> float16 KV states
|
KV Quantization -> q4/q8 for storage
|
Store back into L1 + L2
Auto-detected parsers for every major model family:
qwen - llama - mistral - hermes - deepseek - glm47 - minimax - nemotron - granite - functionary - xlam - kimi - step3p5
Auto-detected reasoning parsers that extract <think> blocks:
qwen3 (Qwen3, QwQ, MiniMax, StepFun) - deepseek_r1 (DeepSeek R1, Gemma 3, GLM, Phi-4) - openai_gptoss (GLM Flash, GPT-OSS)
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Text-to-Speech | Kokoro TTS via mlx-audio -- multiple voices, streaming output |
| Speech-to-Text | Whisper STT via mlx-audio -- transcription and translation |
Generate and edit images locally with Flux models via mflux.
pip install vmlx[image]
# Image generation
vmlx serve schnell # or dev, z-image-turbo
vmlx serve ~/.mlxstudio/models/image/flux1-schnell-4bit
# Image editing
vmlx serve qwen-image-edit # instruction-based editingcurl http://localhost:8000/v1/images/generations \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "schnell",
"prompt": "A cat astronaut floating in space with Earth in the background",
"size": "1024x1024",
"n": 1
}'# Python (OpenAI SDK)
response = client.images.generate(
model="schnell",
prompt="A cat astronaut floating in space",
size="1024x1024",
n=1,
)# Edit an image with a text prompt (Flux Kontext / Qwen Image Edit)
curl http://localhost:8000/v1/images/edits \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "flux-kontext",
"prompt": "Change the background to a sunset",
"image": "<base64-encoded-image>",
"size": "1024x1024",
"strength": 0.8
}'# Python
import base64
with open("source.png", "rb") as f:
image_b64 = base64.b64encode(f.read()).decode()
response = requests.post("http://localhost:8000/v1/images/edits", json={
"model": "flux-kontext",
"prompt": "Make the sky purple",
"image": image_b64,
"size": "1024x1024",
"strength": 0.8,
})Generation Models:
| Model | Steps | Speed | Memory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flux Schnell | 4 | Fastest | ~6-24 GB |
| Z-Image Turbo | 4 | Fast | ~6-24 GB |
| Flux Dev | 20 | Slow | ~6-24 GB |
Editing Models:
| Model | Steps | Type | Memory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qwen Image Edit | 28 | Instruction-based editing | ~54 GB |
The desktop app runs an API Gateway on a single port (default 8080) that routes requests to all loaded models by name. Run multiple models simultaneously and access them all through one URL.
# All models accessible through the gateway
curl http://localhost:8080/v1/chat/completions \
-d '{"model": "Qwen3.5-122B", "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hi"}]}'
# Works with Ollama CLI too
OLLAMA_HOST=http://localhost:8080 ollama run Qwen3.5-122BThe gateway supports OpenAI, Anthropic, and Ollama wire formats. Configure the port in the API tab.
OpenAI / Anthropic
| Method | Path | Description |
|---|---|---|
POST |
/v1/chat/completions |
OpenAI Chat Completions API (streaming + non-streaming) |
POST |
/v1/messages |
Anthropic Messages API |
POST |
/v1/responses |
OpenAI Responses API |
POST |
/v1/completions |
Text completions |
POST |
/v1/images/generations |
Image generation |
POST |
/v1/images/edits |
Image editing (Qwen Image Edit) |
POST |
/v1/embeddings |
Text embeddings |
POST |
/v1/rerank |
Document reranking |
POST |
/v1/audio/transcriptions |
Speech-to-text (Whisper) |
POST |
/v1/audio/speech |
Text-to-speech (Kokoro) |
GET |
/v1/models |
List loaded models |
GET |
/v1/cache/stats |
Cache statistics |
GET |
/health |
Server health check |
Ollama
| Method | Path | Description |
|---|---|---|
POST |
/api/chat |
Chat completion (NDJSON streaming) |
POST |
/api/generate |
Text generation (NDJSON streaming) |
GET |
/api/tags |
List loaded models |
POST |
/api/show |
Model details |
POST |
/api/embeddings |
Generate embeddings |
Chat completion (streaming)
curl http://localhost:8000/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "local",
"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Explain quantum computing in 3 sentences."}],
"stream": true,
"temperature": 0.7
}'Chat completion with thinking mode
curl http://localhost:8000/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "local",
"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Solve: what is 23 * 47?"}],
"enable_thinking": true,
"stream": true
}'Tool calling
curl http://localhost:8000/v1/chat/completions \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "local",
"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "What is the weather in Tokyo?"}],
"tools": [{
"type": "function",
"function": {
"name": "get_weather",
"description": "Get current weather for a location",
"parameters": {
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"location": {"type": "string", "description": "City name"}
},
"required": ["location"]
}
}
}]
}'Anthropic Messages API
curl http://localhost:8000/v1/messages \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-H "x-api-key: not-needed" \
-H "anthropic-version: 2023-06-01" \
-d '{
"model": "local",
"max_tokens": 1024,
"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}]
}'Embeddings
curl http://localhost:8000/v1/embeddings \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "local",
"input": "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"
}'Text-to-speech
curl http://localhost:8000/v1/audio/speech \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "kokoro",
"input": "Hello, welcome to vMLX!",
"voice": "af_heart"
}' --output speech.wavSpeech-to-text
curl http://localhost:8000/v1/audio/transcriptions \
-F file=@audio.wav \
-F model=whisperImage generation
curl http://localhost:8000/v1/images/generations \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "schnell",
"prompt": "A mountain landscape at sunset",
"size": "1024x1024"
}'Reranking
curl http://localhost:8000/v1/rerank \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "local",
"query": "What is machine learning?",
"documents": [
"ML is a subset of AI",
"The weather is sunny today",
"Neural networks learn from data"
]
}'Cache stats
curl http://localhost:8000/v1/cache/statsHealth check
curl http://localhost:8000/healthvMLX includes a native macOS desktop app (MLX Studio) with 5 modes:
| Mode | Description |
|---|---|
| Chat | Conversation interface with chat history, thinking mode, tool calling, agentic coding |
| Server | Manage model sessions -- start, stop, configure, monitor |
| Image | Text-to-image generation and image editing with Flux, Kontext, Qwen, and Fill models |
| Tools | Model converter, GGUF-to-MLX, inspector, diagnostics |
| API | Live endpoint reference with copy-pasteable code snippets |
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| Image generation and editing with Flux models | Developer tools -- model conversion and diagnostics |
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| Anthropic Messages API endpoint -- full compatibility | GGUF to MLX conversion -- bring your own models |
Get the latest DMG from MLX Studio Releases, or build from source:
git clone https://github.com/jjang-ai/vmlx.git
cd vmlx/panel
npm install && npm run build
npx electron-builder --mac dmgvMLX lives in your menu bar showing all running models, GPU memory usage, and quick controls.
vMLX supports standard MLX quantization (4-bit, 8-bit uniform) out of the box. For users who want to push further, JANG adaptive mixed-precision assigns different bit widths to different layer types -- attention gets more bits, MLP layers get fewer -- achieving better quality at the same model size.
| Profile | Attention | Embeddings | MLP | Avg Bits | Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
JANG_2M |
8-bit | 4-bit | 2-bit | ~2.5 | Balanced compression |
JANG_2L |
8-bit | 6-bit | 2-bit | ~2.7 | Quality 2-bit |
JANG_3M |
8-bit | 3-bit | 3-bit | ~3.2 | Recommended |
JANG_4M |
8-bit | 4-bit | 4-bit | ~4.2 | Standard quality |
JANG_6M |
8-bit | 6-bit | 6-bit | ~6.2 | Near lossless |
pip install vmlx[jang]
# Standard MLX quantization
vmlx convert my-model --bits 4
# JANG adaptive quantization
vmlx convert my-model --jang-profile JANG_3M
# Activation-aware calibration (better at 2-3 bit)
vmlx convert my-model --jang-profile JANG_2L --calibration-method activations
# Serve the converted model
vmlx serve ./my-model-JANG_3M --continuous-batching --use-paged-cachePre-quantized JANG models are available at JANGQ-AI on HuggingFace.
vmlx serve <model> # Start inference server
vmlx convert <model> --bits 4 # MLX uniform quantization
vmlx convert <model> -j JANG_3M # JANG adaptive quantization
vmlx info <model> # Model metadata and config
vmlx doctor <model> # Run diagnostics
vmlx bench <model> # Performance benchmarksvmlx serve <model> \
--host 0.0.0.0 \ # Bind address (default: 0.0.0.0)
--port 8000 \ # Port (default: 8000)
--api-key sk-your-key \ # Optional API key authentication
--continuous-batching \ # Enable concurrent request handling
--enable-prefix-cache \ # Reuse KV states for repeated prompts
--use-paged-cache \ # Block-based KV cache with dedup
--kv-cache-quantization q8 \ # Quantize cache: q4 or q8
--enable-disk-cache \ # Persist cache to SSD
--enable-jit \ # JIT Metal kernel compilation
--tool-call-parser auto \ # Auto-detect tool call format
--reasoning-parser auto \ # Auto-detect thinking format
--log-level INFO \ # Logging: DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR
--max-model-len 8192 \ # Max context length
--speculative-model <model> \ # Draft model for speculative decoding
--enable-pld \ # Prompt Lookup Decoding โ no draft model, best for code/JSON/schemas
--cors-origins "*" # CORS allowed originsvmlx convert <model> \
--bits 4 \ # Uniform quantization bits: 2, 3, 4, 6, 8
--group-size 64 \ # Quantization group size (default: 64)
--output ./output-dir \ # Output directory
--jang-profile JANG_3M \ # JANG mixed-precision profile
--calibration-method activations # Activation-aware calibrationpip install vmlx[image]
# Generation models
vmlx serve schnell \ # or dev, z-image-turbo
--image-quantize 4 \ # Quantization: 4, 8 (omit for full precision)
--port 8001
# Editing models
vmlx serve qwen-image-edit \ # Instruction-based editing (full precision only)
--port 8001
# Local model directory
vmlx serve ~/.mlxstudio/models/image/FLUX.1-schnell-mflux-4bitTTS and STT require the mlx-audio package:
pip install mlx-audio
# TTS: serve Kokoro model
vmlx serve kokoro --port 8002
# STT: serve Whisper model
vmlx serve whisper --port 8003pip install vmlx # Core: text LLMs, VLMs, embeddings, reranking
pip install vmlx[image] # + Image generation (mflux)
pip install vmlx[jang] # + JANG quantization tools
pip install vmlx[dev] # + Development/testing tools
pip install vmlx[image,jang] # Multiple extras+--------------------------------------------+
| Desktop App (Electron) |
| Chat | Server | Image | Tools | API |
+--------------------------------------------+
| Session Manager (TypeScript) |
| Process spawn | Health monitor | Tray |
+--------------------------------------------+
| vMLX Engine (Python / FastAPI) |
| +--------+ +---------+ +-----------+ |
| |Simple | | Batched | | ImageGen | |
| |Engine | | Engine | | Engine | |
| +---+----+ +----+----+ +-----+-----+ |
| | | | |
| +---+------------+--+ +-----+-----+ |
| | mlx-lm / mlx-vlm | | mflux | |
| +--------+-----------+ +-----------+ |
| | |
| +--------+----------------------------+ |
| | MLX Metal GPU Backend | |
| | quantized_matmul | KV cache | SDPA | |
| +--------------------------------------+ |
+--------------------------------------------+
| L1: Prefix Cache (Memory-Aware / Paged) |
| L2: Disk Cache (Persistent / Block Store) |
| KV Quant: q4/q8 at storage boundary |
+--------------------------------------------+
Contributions are welcome. Here is how to set up a development environment:
git clone https://github.com/jjang-ai/vmlx.git
cd vmlx
# Python engine
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev,jang,image]"
pytest tests/ -k "not Async" # 2000+ tests
# Electron desktop app
cd panel && npm install
npm run dev # Development mode with hot reload
npx vitest run # 1545+ testsvmlx/
vmlx_engine/ # Python inference engine (FastAPI server)
panel/ # Electron desktop app (React + TypeScript)
src/main/ # Electron main process
src/renderer/ # React frontend
src/preload/ # IPC bridge
tests/ # Python test suite
assets/ # Screenshots and logos
- Run the full test suite before submitting PRs
- Follow existing code style and patterns
- Include tests for new features
- Update documentation for user-facing changes
Apache License 2.0 -- see LICENSE.
Built by Jinho Jang (eric@jangq.ai)
JANGQ AI โข PyPI โข GitHub โข Downloads
Mac์์ LLM, VLM, ์ด๋ฏธ์ง ์์ฑ ๋ฐ ํธ์ง ๋ชจ๋ธ์ ์์ ํ ๋ก์ปฌ๋ก ์คํํ์ธ์. OpenAI + Anthropic ํธํ API. ํด๋ผ์ฐ๋ ์์. API ํค ๋ถํ์. ๋ฐ์ดํฐ๊ฐ ๊ธฐ๊ธฐ๋ฅผ ๋ ๋์ง ์์ต๋๋ค.
Release History
| Version | Changes | Urgency | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| v1.3.34 | Post-v1.3.33 fixes driven by user reports and a dedicated-machine test matrix across 5 models. ## SSM Deferred Re-derive (Hybrid SSM + Thinking Models) For thinking models on hybrid SSM architectures (Nemotron, Qwen3.5-VL), the post-generation SSM state was contaminated by thinking tokens and previously **skipped entirely** โ causing 100% SSM companion cache miss on every multi-turn request. Now the scheduler **queues a deferred re-derive** that runs during idle time: a separate prefill pass | High | 4/9/2026 |
| v1.3.32 | Gemma 4 VLM image recognition fix (two-layer bug). **Bug 1** โ mlx_vlm MODEL_CONFIG missing `gemma4` entry โ `apply_chat_template()` raised `Unsupported model: gemma4` โ silent fallback to text-only tokenizer โ image content parts dropped โ model answered as if no image was attached. **Fix**: Register `gemma4`/`gemma4_text` under `LIST_WITH_IMAGE_TYPE` in `vmlx_engine/__init__.py` at import time so the Jinja chat template renders `<|image|>` tokens correctly. **Bug 2** โ Gemma 4 vision tower | High | 4/9/2026 |







