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AI Tool Radar
OSI-openLocal inference and "what runs on my machine"

Rapid-MLX

raullenchai

Local OpenAI-compatible inference server for Apple Silicon built on MLX, designed for coding agents.

2.7k stars(as of 2026-06-05)View on GitHub

What is Rapid-MLX?

A local OpenAI-compatible inference server for Apple Silicon built on MLX, designed to plug into coding agents like Cursor and Claude Code. It ships with tool-calling, prompt caching and 3,300+ tests.

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Serious engineering signals: 3,300+ tests, a doctor diagnostic, broad model support
  • Clean Ollama/llama.cpp replacement on Apple Silicon
  • Apache-2.0, fully OSI-open

Cons

  • macOS / Apple Silicon only - no Linux, Windows or NVIDIA
  • Officially Beta (PyPI development status 4) despite a high version number
  • The '4.2x faster than Ollama' headline has no disclosed benchmark conditions - and PyPI states a more modest '2-4x'

License

Apache-2.0 (OSI-open)

When it is interesting

Apple Silicon users running local inference for coding agents.

When it is too early

Any non-Apple hardware, or if you need reproducible speed guarantees rather than a marketing headline.

This repo featured in the 2026-06 edition of the Open-Source AI Radar.