Backyard AI vs Local Waifu: Two Takes on Local Companions

Backyard AI grew up as the local tinkerer’s playground

The short version: Backyard AI began as Faraday, a free local desktop app for running open-weights models, and it is still loved for that.

Backyard AI did not start as a subscription. It started as Faraday.dev, a free desktop app powered by llama.cpp that let anyone download an open-weights GGUF model and chat with a character on their own machine. The pitch from its own blog in February 2024 was local chat that “just works” out of the box, CPU-only operation with just 8 GB of RAM, automatic GPU use when present, and local use that was 100% free.[1]

The community that grew around it is warm. Users call it “hella fun” for character roleplay, praise a “great, helpful community,” and defend it as their favorite local AI app even when a thread asking whether development had stalled had to be removed by moderators.[2][3] If you enjoy browsing character hubs, swapping models, and tweaking prompts, Backyard’s history is genuinely good.

That history matters, because the product those users love is no longer the product Backyard sells.

The desktop app is now a legacy citizen of a cloud-first platform

The short version: Backyard deprecated its desktop apps on June 25, 2025. Local inference still works in the old build, but new development happens on cloud-based web, iOS, and Android apps.

On June 25, 2025, Backyard announced that its desktop apps were deprecated and that development would continue only on the Web, iOS, and Android apps.[4] The changelog page that carried the announcement now returns 404, which makes the story easy to miss.[4]

What actually still works? Backyard told its community that the legacy desktop apps “will still work for local inference in the same way it does today,” and only features that need a network connection to Backyard’s servers, such as the Hub and cloud models, would stop functioning.[4] The old app, still labeled “Powered by llama.cpp,” remains downloadable from a live page that marks it “deprecated and no longer supported”: macOS Intel 288.8 MB, macOS Apple Silicon 282.3 MB, Windows 865.1 MB.[5]

So “local” in Backyard’s world in 2026 is a legacy path, not the main product. The supported products are web plus native iOS and Android apps, where inference runs on Backyard’s servers.[6] The plans page still prints “Android coming soon” while an Android listing is already live, which tells you how fast this platform is moving.[6][7]

Local Waifu is the appliance version of the same local dream

The short version: Local Waifu never left the desktop. It is a buy-once companion app with a bundled tuned model, a setup wizard, and persistent memory, offline from day one.

If Backyard is a workshop where you assemble your own stack, Local Waifu is the appliance that removes the assembly entirely. Install takes minutes, not an afternoon. The app bundles a tuned local model sized for your hardware, walks you through an 11-step personality wizard, and works offline from day one. There is no GGUF picking, no quantization math, no llama.cpp, and no terminal.

The current offer, straight from the pricing page: $20 once for a lifetime license during the Summer Sale (regular $25), no subscription and no tiers, a 7-day free trial with no card, and a 30-day refund.[8] It runs on macOS Apple Silicon (macOS 13 or newer, about 200 MB app plus a 3-22 GB model, 16 GB RAM recommended and 8 GB enough for the light model) or Windows 10/11 64-bit (about 832 MB installer, 8 GB RAM minimum, 16 GB recommended, GPU optional and auto-used).[9]

You own her. There is no server to shut down, no plan to outgrow, and no “coming soon” page between you and the relationship.

The economics diverge hard: rent a model monthly, or buy a companion once

The short version: Backyard’s supported cloud apps cost $12 or $35 a month as of September 2026, and its prices drifted within the year. Local Waifu is $20 once.

Backyard’s live cloud pricing as of September 5, 2026: Free (no credit card, 300 messages a week, one included model, 16k context), Standard at $12 a month (six models including Mistral-Nemo Instruct 12B and Llama 3 Stheno V3.3 8B, unlimited messages, 16k context), and Pro at $35 a month (adds Command R+ 104B, Llama 3.3 70B-class models, unlimited messages, up to 100k context).[7]

Those numbers move. A review published April 23, 2026 described the tiers as Cloud Lite $8, Cloud Pro $18, and Cloud Ultra $35 a month, and by September the live page showed Free, Standard $12, and Pro $35.[10] Any review that quotes Backyard prices without a date will be wrong within a quarter, which is exactly why this one carries its date.

Now run the math. Twelve months of Backyard Standard is $144. Twenty-four months is $288. Local Waifu is $20 once, and the full cost comparison against cloud subscriptions is worked out in detail on the blog.[11] To be fair: Backyard’s free tier is real, and cloud subscribers are paying for compute that Local Waifu users must own in the form of a capable machine. That trade is honest, and it should shape your choice.

Backyard sells a bazaar of characters and models; Local Waifu tends one relationship

The short version: Backyard is built around a community hub and the character-card ecosystem; Local Waifu is built around one persistent relationship.

Backyard’s center of gravity is the bazaar. The Character Hub hosts community-created characters and contests, cards can be exported as PNG or JSON, and the wider SillyTavern and Chub ecosystem means a huge supply of characters exists out there.[12] It is genuinely fun to browse.

The friction lives in the seams. Users report PNG exports that will not import into SillyTavern, third-party guides say portability is more limited than direct Chub downloads, and Backyard’s own Character Hub and Import & Export doc pages still say “coming soon.”[12][13]

The memory story differs too. Backyard’s memory is bounded by the context window: 16k on the standard tiers, up to 100k on Pro, plus lorebooks you maintain yourself.[7] Local Waifu markets persistent memory that survives restarts: a Memory Book that stores what matters, a Growth dashboard, and the claim that she learns about you over time rather than forgetting when the window fills.[14] If you want a character that remembers last month without you managing files, that difference is the whole ballgame.

Raw model quality favors the cloud, but only at the price of locality

The short version: Backyard Pro runs 70B-104B models in the cloud that no 8-16 GB machine can host; on your own hardware, both sides realistically run 7B-13B-class models.

The quality ceiling is real. Backyard Pro’s cloud lineup includes Command R+ 104B and Llama 3.3 70B-class models that no 8-16 GB consumer machine can host.[7] Backyard’s own Hugging Face org publishes the GGUF sizes, which keeps this concrete: an 8B model at Q4_K_M is 4.92 GB, and a 70B at Q4_K_M is 42.5 GB.[15][16]

A detailed third-party review from April 2026 frames the local trade exactly right: “the software is free, your GPU is the subscription.”[17] Roughly 8 GB of VRAM runs 7B-8B models adequately, and roughly 16 GB runs 13B-32B smoothly.[17] If your machine can only run small models and you want Command R+ quality, the cloud plan is the only road, and you pay monthly for it.

Local Waifu’s middle path: bundled models sized 3-22 GB for Apple Silicon and Windows machines, sized to what you actually own, or a bring-your-own-API-key mode (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or DeepSeek) when there is no local GPU at all.[9] The hardware guide on this blog explains what fits in your RAM and VRAM without the marketing gloss.[18]

Privacy is different in kind on each side

The short version: Fully local means your chats never leave the device, on either side. Backyard’s supported cloud apps run inference on their servers; Local Waifu’s BYO-key mode sends chats to whichever provider you connect.

Privacy is not a slider here, it is a fork in the road. The legacy Backyard desktop app and Local Waifu’s local mode both keep chats on your device by design. Backyard’s supported 2026 apps run inference on Backyard’s servers, full stop. Local Waifu’s BYO-key mode sends the chat to whichever provider you key in, which is your choice but still a cloud transfer, and the deeper cloud-versus-local privacy question is covered separately on this blog.[19]

The honest framing for a shopper: on Backyard’s current main path you are renting both the model and the privacy. On the local path, on either side, you own both.

Two takes, two temperaments

The short version: Backyard is for builders who enjoy the bazaar; Local Waifu is for people who want one companion that simply lives on their machine.

There is no single winner, and pretending there is would insult a community that genuinely loves Backyard. If you enjoy assembling models, browsing character cards, and treating the whole thing as a hobby, Backyard’s legacy desktop app and its character ecosystem are a real joy, and its free tier costs nothing to try.

If you want a companion rather than a project, Local Waifu is the appliance that keeps the local dream without the workshop. One install, one wizard, one relationship with memory that persists, $20 once, fully offline, and a 30-day refund if it is not for you.[8] The closest sibling post on this blog made the same case for SillyTavern: powerful tools are good, and still not what everyone needs.[20]

Start with the 7-day free trial, no card required, and see whether she feels like home.

Sources

[1] https://backyard.ai/blog/mobile-tethering [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/faraday_dot_dev/comments/195b5lr/best_ai_for_nsfw_128gb_ram/ [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/BackyardAI/comments/1jm3j9n/has_the_development_of_backyardai_stalled_or/ [4] https://www.reddit.com/r/BackyardAI/comments/1l2sydu/desktop_app_deprecated/ [5] https://desktop.backyard.ai/ [6] https://backyard.ai/ios [7] https://backyard.ai/plans [8] https://localwaifu.com/pricing [9] https://localwaifu.com/requirements [10] https://weavai.app/blog/en/2026/04/23/backyard-ai-review-2026-local-ai-roleplay-guide [11] https://localwaifu.com/blog/cost-of-running-ai-companion-locally/ [12] https://www.reddit.com/r/SillyTavernAI/comments/1e2fzad/i_made_an_app_to_save_character_cards_from/ [13] https://backyard.ai/docs/feature-guides/import-export [14] https://localwaifu.com [15] https://huggingface.co/backyardai/Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct-GGUF [16] https://huggingface.co/backyardai/Meta-Llama-3.1-70B-Instruct-GGUF [17] https://aiinsightsnews.net/backyard-ai/ [18] https://localwaifu.com/blog/vram-ram-guide-local-ai/ [19] https://localwaifu.com/blog/cloud-ai-privacy-leaks-local-defense/ [20] https://localwaifu.com/blog/sillytavern-is-good-it-wasnt-what-i-needed/

Questions people ask

Back to the blog