---
type: concept
title: "Open-Source & Local AI Coding"
description: "Community-maintained, self-hostable AI coding tools and local models that dodge API costs and rate limits."
tags: [ai-coding, open-source, local-llms, cost]
videos: [insane-new-strategy-for-building-ai-agent-apps, breaking-news-ottodev-is-now-the-official-open-source-boltnew, ottodev-is-becoming-the-best-open-source-ai-coding-assistant, how-to-use-boltnew-for-free-with-local-llms-and-no-rate-limits, were-taking-this-ai-coding-assistant-to-the-moon-plus-installation-instructions]
created: 2026-07-21
updated: 2026-07-21
---

# Open-Source & Local AI Coding

Open-source AI coding tools are community-built, self-hostable coding assistants that you can run yourself, most importantly against free local models. The motive is cost and control: with local LLMs "you never have to pay a dime or hit those nasty rate limits ever again" [0:00:20]. That directly answers the pain of hosted tools, where users "slowly use more and more credits as they're making these changes and then they hit their limit and they can't continue." Running the fork yourself means "you can take our initial project from lovable or bolt.new and then tweak it to your hearts content completely for free."

## How it works

The flagship example in these videos is the Bolt.new fork that grew into oTToDev, the community effort "we are building to be the best open source AI coding assistant." Being open source is itself the mechanism: "you can run yourself and use to work with all these local llms with all these insanely cool features that commercial bolt.new won't have because we can just move so fast as an open source repository." Development is [community-driven](./community-driven-development.md), "so many of you are making awesome additions... and our core team of maintainers has really really stepped up," which lets the fork ship capabilities (local-model support, local project loading) faster than the closed product. The result is a tool "that is accessible to everyone."

## Contrasts with

- [Browser-Based AI Coding Tools](./browser-based-ai-coding.md) - the hosted, credit-metered products (Bolt.new, Lovable) that open-source forks are built to run for free.

## Builds on

- [Local & Self-Hosted AI](./local-ai.md) - running models yourself is what removes the API bill and the rate limit.
- [Community-Driven Development](./community-driven-development.md) - the maintainer-and-contributor model that lets the fork out-ship the commercial version.

## Related

- [Provider Independence](./provider-independence.md) - not being locked to one paid model vendor.
- [Model Selection](./model-selection.md) - choosing a local model good enough for the coding task.
- [Strategy Stacking](./strategy-stacking.md) - e.g. prototype on a hosted tool, then finish for free on the open-source fork.
- [File Diffs Instead of Full Rewrites](./file-diffs-vs-rewrites.md) - Applying targeted diffs (file walking) rather than rewriting whole files makes an AI coding tool faster, cheaper, and less destructive on edits.

## Tools

- [oTToDev](../entities/tools/ottodev.md) / [Bolt.diy](../entities/tools/bolt-diy.md) - the community fork of Bolt.new built for local LLMs.
- [Bolt.new](../entities/tools/bolt-new.md), [Lovable](../entities/tools/lovable.md) - the commercial tools whose output the fork lets you keep editing for free.
- [Ollama](../entities/tools/ollama.md) - a common way to serve the local models these tools target.
- [DeepSeek Coder V2](../entities/tools/deepseek-coder-v2.md) - Open-source 236B-parameter coding model available via OpenRouter or the DeepSeek API, recommended as roughly 20x cheaper than Claude while remaining highly capable for AI coding.
- [Node.js](../entities/tools/nodejs.md) - JavaScript runtime used as an install prerequisite, whose npm scripts act as optional convenience wrappers around the underlying Docker build and run commands.
- [Zed](../entities/tools/zed.md) - A free, open-source code editor from the team that created the Agent Client Protocol, shipping the first beta ACP implementation with native Gemini CLI and adapter-based Claude Code support.

## Sources

- [How to Use Bolt.new for FREE with Local LLMs (And NO Rate Limits)](../sources/how-to-use-boltnew-for-free-with-local-llms-and-no-rate-limits.md) - "[0:00:20] so many people want to use local llms especially because with them you never have to pay a dime or hit those nasty rate limits ever again"
- [INSANE New Strategy for Building AI Agent Apps](../sources/insane-new-strategy-for-building-ai-agent-apps.md) - "[0:05:18] bolt.DIY you can run yourself and use completely free models and so we can take our initial project from lovable or bolt.new and then tweak it to our hearts content completely for free"
- [BREAKING NEWS: oTToDev is Now the OFFICIAL Open Source Bolt.new](../sources/breaking-news-ottodev-is-now-the-official-open-source-boltnew.md) - "[0:05:25] you can run yourself and use to work with all these local llms with all these insanely cool features that commercial bolt.new won't have because we can just move so fast as an open source repository"
- [oTToDev is Becoming the BEST Open Source AI Coding Assistant](../sources/ottodev-is-becoming-the-best-open-source-ai-coding-assistant.md) - "[0:00:17] so many of you are making awesome additions to oTToDev and our core team of maintainers has really really stepped up"
- [We're Taking this AI Coding Assistant to the MOON [Plus Installation Instructions!]](../sources/were-taking-this-ai-coding-assistant-to-the-moon-plus-installation-instructions.md) - "[0:12:26] together we are building a truly powerful AI coding assistant that is accessible to everyone"
