How to Run a Local AI Server for Your Whole Team on Your Mac in 2026 (Ollama Alternative, No Cloud)

Posted on Oct 24 • Originally published at getoffgridai.co

You have one Mac with plenty of memory and a team that wants to use local AI. Buying everyone a big machine is expensive, and sending your code and documents to a cloud API is the thing you were trying to avoid. Off Grid AI Desktop can turn that one Mac into a shared AI server. Its gateway has a Team mode that answers several people at once, gives each person their own API key, and keeps the Mac awake while it works. Every request stays on your network.

More unified memory means more people at once. With Auto, the app opens up to 4 requests at once on a Mac with 32 GB or less, up to 8 on a Mac with up to 96 GB, and up to 16 above that, such as a Mac Studio with 128 GB. Inside that cap, the real number comes from the memory left over after the model loads, so each request still has room for a long conversation.

The gateway listens on port 7878 on every network interface, so other devices on the network can reach it as soon as the app runs. If the macOS firewall is on and asks whether to allow incoming connections for Off Grid AI Desktop, click Allow.

The change applies to the next request. If someone is mid-answer when you change a setting, the app waits for that answer to finish before it restarts the engine, for up to a minute, so nobody gets a reply cut in half.

When every slot is busy, new requests wait in line in the order they arrived. When the line is full, the gateway answers with HTTP 429 and tells the client to retry in 2 seconds, so a client backs off instead of hanging.

By default the gateway does not ask for a key. On a shared network, turn keys on.

Each key in the list shows whether it is Active, Expired or Revoked, and when it was last used. If a laptop is lost, click the revoke icon next to that key. Requests with that key are refused from then on, and nobody else needs a new one. The keys are stored in the macOS keychain, not in a settings file.

from openai import OpenAI client = OpenAI ( base_url = " http://192.168.1.20:7878/v1 ", api_key = " THE_KEY_YOU_COPIED " ) resp = client. chat. completions. create ( model = " local ", messages = [{ " role ": " user ", " content ": " Summarise this changelog in two lines. " }], ) print ( resp. choices [ 0 ]. message. content ) Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode A request that names local or no model runs on the chat model loaded on the Mac. The Endpoints list on the Gateway screen shows what else the server offers: chat with images, text to image, speech to text, text to speech, embeddings and the model list.

To use the Mac's models from the Off Grid AI phone app, follow the guide to use Off Grid AI Desktop from your phone and give the phone its own key.

Open Settings and find AI activity. Every request is listed with its model and timing, and a request sent with a key shows that key's name beside its source. A request sent without a key shows no name.

For scripts and monitoring, GET /v1/gateway/status returns the mode, the requests-at-once setting, and for each part of the server how many requests are running, waiting and refused. It needs the same key as every other route.

In Team mode the Mac stays awake while it is answering, and is allowed to sleep a minute after the last request ends. In Just me mode it does not hold the Mac awake.

To serve without the desktop window, start the app from Terminal in server-only mode, with Team mode for that run only:

"/Applications/Off Grid AI Desktop.app/Contents/MacOS/Off Grid AI Desktop" --server-only --gateway-mode team --gateway-clients auto Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode --gateway-clients takes auto or a number. These flags apply to that launch and do not change the settings you chose in the app. The environment variables OFFGRID_GATEWAY_MODE and OFFGRID_GATEWAY_CLIENTS do the same.

Is Off Grid AI Desktop an alternative to Ollama for a team server? Yes, for teams whose tools speak the OpenAI API. It serves chat, vision, image generation, speech and embeddings from one address, with per-person API keys and a request log built in.

How many people can use one Mac at once? With Auto, up to 4 requests at once on a Mac with 32 GB or less, up to 8 up to 96 GB, and up to 16 above that, limited further by the memory your model leaves free. More people can send requests; the extra ones wait in line.

Does my team's data leave the office? No. Requests go from each computer to the Mac on your network and the models run on the Mac. Nothing is sent to a cloud service.

Can I revoke one person's access? Yes. Click the revoke icon next to their key under API keys. Their requests are refused and every other key keeps working.

Is Team mode free? Yes. The gateway, Team mode and API keys are part of the free Off Grid AI Desktop app on Mac, with no account.