(1) The ability to add context via a local apps integration into OS level resources is big. With Claude, eg, I hit Option-SPC which brings up a prompt bar. From there, taking a screenshot that will get sent my prompt is as simple as dragging a bounding box. This is great. Beyond that, I can add my own MCP connectors and give my desktop app direct access to relevant context in a way that doesn't work via web UI. It may also be inconvenient to give context to a web UI in some case where, eg, I may have a folder of PDFs I want it to be able to reference.
(2) Its own icon that I can CMD-TAB to is so much nicer. Maybe that works with a PWA? Not really sure.
(3) Even if I can't use an LLM when offline, having access to my chats for context has been repeatedly valuable to me.
I haven't looked at provider-agnostic apps and, TBH, would be wary of them.
> The ability to add context via a local apps integration into OS level resources is big
Good point. I can see why integrated support for local filesystem tools would be useful, even though I prefer manually uploading specific files to avoid polluting the context with irrelevant info.
> Its own icon that I can CMD-TAB to is so much nicer
Fair enough. I personally prefer Firefox's tab organization to my OS's window organization, but I can see how separating the LLM into its own window would be helpful.
> having access to my chats for context has been repeatedly valuable to me.
I didn't at all consider this. Point ceded.
> I haven't looked at provider-agnostic apps and, TBH, would be wary of them.
Interesting. Why? Is it security? The ones I've listed are open source and auditable. I'm confident that they won't steal my API keys. Msty has a lot of advanced functionality that I haven't seen in other interfaces like allowing you to compare responses between different LLMs, export the entire conversation to Markdown, and edit the LLM's response to manage context. It also sidesteps the problem of '[provider] doesn't have a desktop app' because you can use any provider API.
> Good point. I can see why integrated support for local filesystem tools would be useful, even though I prefer manually uploading specific files to avoid polluting the context with irrelevant info.
Access to OS level resources != context pollution. You still have control, just more direct and less manual.
> The ones I've listed are open source and auditable.
Yeah I don't plan on spending who knows how much time auditing some major app's code (lol) before giving it my API keys and access to my chats. Unless there's a critical mass of people I know and trust using something like that it's not going to happen for me.
But also, I tried quickly looking up Msty to see if it is open source and what its adoption looked like and AFAICT it's not open source. Asked Gemini 3 if it was and it also said no. Frankly that makes it a very hard no for me. If you are using it because you think it's Open Source I suggest you stop.
(1) The ability to add context via a local apps integration into OS level resources is big. With Claude, eg, I hit Option-SPC which brings up a prompt bar. From there, taking a screenshot that will get sent my prompt is as simple as dragging a bounding box. This is great. Beyond that, I can add my own MCP connectors and give my desktop app direct access to relevant context in a way that doesn't work via web UI. It may also be inconvenient to give context to a web UI in some case where, eg, I may have a folder of PDFs I want it to be able to reference.
(2) Its own icon that I can CMD-TAB to is so much nicer. Maybe that works with a PWA? Not really sure.
(3) Even if I can't use an LLM when offline, having access to my chats for context has been repeatedly valuable to me.
I haven't looked at provider-agnostic apps and, TBH, would be wary of them.