Ollama
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What is Ollama?
Ollama is a lightweight tool for downloading, running and managing large language models on your own computer, with a local API that other apps can call.
A lightweight, user-friendly tool that allows developers to easily download, run, and manage large language models locally on their own hardware.
Ollama abstracts away the complex Python environments and configuration files usually required to run open-weight models. With simple commands (like ollama run deepseek-r1), it downloads the model, optimizes it for your Mac, Linux, or Windows machine, and exposes a local API that acts exactly like OpenAI's API.
How it relates to Orbit
Orbit can route a complexity tier to an Ollama endpoint through its local API executor. See Complexity Tiers & Routing for details.
When you would use it
You use Ollama when you want the absolute easiest, frictionless way to run an AI model privately on your laptop.
Common operations
- Running a private coding assistant entirely offline to protect corporate IP.
- Quickly testing new open-weight models locally before deploying them to the cloud.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a GPU to run Ollama?
No, but it helps. Small quantized models run on a CPU; larger ones need a GPU or Apple Silicon unified memory to be responsive.
Can Orbit use a model running in Ollama?
Yes. Any complexity tier can route to an Ollama endpoint, and the agent gets a curated, safe subset of Orbit’s tools. See Complexity Tiers & Routing.