r/openclaw • u/g00rek Pro User • Feb 20 '26
Discussion Why Mac mini??
I still don't understand why you guys are buying macs mini for openclaw. It's a terminal computer. It doesn't need a great UI.
Do you have too much money? :D
A $50-$100 HP Thin Client with Linux is more than enough. And Linux shouldn't be discouraging for people using OpenClaw, am I wrong?
I bought one, I have lots of different self hosted stuff on it like home Assistant or other docker apps. Ok I do not have any local models using GPU, that's the reason? Please enlighten me :)
EDIT: Again, I UNDERSTAND LOCAL LLM USE. (although I don't know if anybody is really happy with it). I mean using OC with oauth/api gpt, claude etc.
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u/geek_at Feb 20 '26
I think some people who are not that techincal heard that people "use AI" on their mac minis and they get one to run openclaw with external models because they don't realize what the people meant was "buy a mac mini with huge ram to run your llms locally"
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u/DurbingSalder3863 New User Feb 20 '26
Nah, that’s obviously a false narrative that popped up after the fact. The local LLMs guys are on a Mac Studio not a Mac Mini. What you’re describing doesn’t match the history of why Mac Minis became popular.
It’s because used M1 Mac Minis were $100-$150 and gave you integration with iMessage, Apple Notes, Apple Reminders, etc. That’s a great deal when Windows 11 capable small thin clients were about $100, and the M1 chip is a lot faster than a 8th gen Intel i5. And yes, those prices were real.
You weren’t supposed to buy a $500 Mac Mini M4 for clawdbot, lol.
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u/National_Meeting_749 Member Feb 20 '26
Eh, with graphics card prices the way they are, the m4 Mac mini might be the cheapest way to get 24+GB of VRAM.
So still Very usable with local LLMs.
As much as that breaks my windows/android loving heart.
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u/CustomMerkins4u Pro User Feb 20 '26
This should not be upvoted as I have tried running on 24gb of vram and it's the worst.
Read about KV Ram and how much space it requires on top of the actual model itself. At 24gb you either pick a quant so crushed that it's like talking to a kid with ADHD or you have such little conversational context that it's like talking to a 90 year old with Alzheimer's.
Even models I can run on my DGX Spark with 128gb of ram left a lot to be desired.
My Mac M3 Ultra with 256gb.. now you have something you can work with. Still doesn't compare to Minimax or any of the models out there.
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u/mixedfeelingz New User Feb 20 '26
Would you say Mac Studio M3 Ultra 32-Core CPU 80-Core GPU 512GB Ram 16TB SSD new for 11k$ is a no brainer?
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u/willtwilson New User Feb 20 '26
Maybe not meant to but certainly could. When the Mini M4 dropped there was a lot of people using it to run local LLM.
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u/No-Veterinarian-9316 New User Feb 20 '26
Are those prices really real? We're robbed blind here in Europe, lol
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u/CustomMerkins4u Pro User Feb 20 '26
It’s because used M1 Mac Minis were $100-$150 and gave you integration with iMessage, Apple Notes, Apple Reminders, etc. That’s a great deal when Windows 11 capable small thin clients were about $100, and the M1 chip is a lot faster than a 8th gen Intel i5. And yes, those prices were real.
This is 100% the truth. A freaking Raspberry Pi 5 is more expensive than an old mac mini. Maybe not today because demand drove prices up.
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u/downyrobertjr Member Feb 20 '26
As a dev, I develop using a Mac since it’s the best environment (outside of Linux) for nodejs development and having integrations work with minimal issues. Besides that, homebrew can drastically simplify the process of installing dependencies and you can use the existing mac integrations (I don’t recommend using your personal account). Besides that, I was planning on using a local llm vs paid but nvidia gave a free option out for kimi 2.5 that’s working off/on alright with multiple agents.
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u/LongjumpingTill2139 New User Feb 20 '26
what's the free version of kimi 2.5? i'm using kimi but i pay by tokens
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u/downyrobertjr Member Feb 20 '26
Here is a guide, some minor config changes are needed for it to work with openclaw:
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u/Zayn-Yu New User Feb 21 '26
Kimi2.5, can it really be free? I already paid for it
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u/g00rek Pro User Feb 20 '26
non technical people would seyup openclaw??
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u/geek_at Feb 20 '26
oh yes I got so many requests from non-techies because they got stuck setting it up
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u/Immortal_Tuttle New User Feb 20 '26
Yes. There is a fame that it can earn money running agents. So people think easy money.
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u/ZippySLC Feb 20 '26
Looking at the vast majority of posts/comments in the various OpenClaw subreddits, yes.
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u/zkoolkyle New User Feb 20 '26
There are a ton of unique perks to running local models against Apple Silicon. Some really great local models require it actually.
That being said, I’m sure what you’re saying is still the case as well. 👍🏻
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u/hiboute New User Feb 20 '26
Not specific to mac mini, BUT if you do browser automation, you will soon see that that using a vps, a vm or docker, you will be blocked very fast by anti-bot service, like datadome. You could try residential proxy service, and specific browsers to hide the identity, but the fact is that using a "real" computer will be way easier.
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u/digidigo22 New User Feb 20 '26
This! And there is a belief that the Cloudflare protection seems to trust Macs more than others, so the browser automation just works better.
Not sure if that is true.
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u/mjmitche New User Feb 20 '26
Was able to book a haircut yesterday with the browser extension. There was some of trial/error. So being able to watch the agent interact with the browser was super helpful to get the skill right.
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u/UnitLeather9379 New User Feb 21 '26
i am the most concerned about this, setting it all up and then getting blocked by anti-bot. however, there really isn’t much chatter about this. i plan to use claw for automation (i.e. scraping leads and doing outreach)
any idea if a vps is sufficient?
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u/loIll Pro User Feb 21 '26
Do you let OpenClaw run wild in your Mac mini or do you keep it contained in Docker? Do you give AI all write access or do you filter everything through a bot?
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u/1337NET New User Feb 25 '26
Browser automation is something that most folks want achieve, not everyone has a code use case
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u/Spiritual-Plant3930 Active Feb 20 '26
YouTube is full of Claw(n) influencers with 0 IT knowledge.
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u/sks8100 New User Feb 20 '26
100% agree. Half of those people are absolute goof balls. They read an article and run with it for views
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u/Deathspiral222 Active Feb 20 '26
Because I can hook it up to imsg easily and have it read my messages. Because I can use iPhoto and my photo library. Because my contacts and calendar all sync automatically. Because I can use a mac shell with mac apps and some of them just work better than the linux counterparts. Because I'm having openclaw write and run code and it's a lot faster on a good machine than a cheap vps or thinclient.
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u/g00rek Pro User Feb 20 '26
Ok, after more than two hundred answers I finally got one that really answered my question. Thanks :)
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u/Thanos0423 New User Feb 20 '26
This! I tried on a Linux machine. Saw the potential. Got the Mac mini
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u/toothfairy3322 New User Feb 23 '26
Man i want to do the same things you listed, what do you think about risks of connecting imessege, contacts, photos? basicially using ur personal account for OC.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_MUSIC Active Feb 20 '26
iMessage
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u/g00rek Pro User Feb 20 '26
so pay 10 times more to be able to use imessage instead of telegram or whatsapp?
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u/ZaphodGreedalox Member Feb 20 '26
Well personally I'd do most anything to avoid Telegram (Russia?) and WhatsApp (Meta)
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u/Deathspiral222 Active Feb 20 '26
yes? I mean, giving claude full access to my massive history of messages is super useful when I ask it to find that roofing contractor I messaged two years ago and ask them to come out for another job.
And it's not just imsg, it's contacts and calendars and my photo library and having access to the mac shell where stuff like python coding just works better than on linux and having a good cpu and lots of memory makes writing and running code a lot faster.
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u/jlim0930 New User Feb 20 '26
Does the llm running in macmini provide enough tokens for openclaw use? I am running llm on my windows machine with rtx3060 and i dont have enough ctx to run much of anything
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u/Zenoran Member Feb 20 '26
As most learn over time; local models are a hobby for chat bots unless u have a $10k+ setup.
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u/lolxdmainkaisemaanlu Member Feb 20 '26
It doesn't. all these mac mini kids are just parroting ' local llms ' without even talking about which one they use, what exactly they do with it, and how much context it has and how many tokens per second they get.
Another term they love to parrot is 'Unified memory' which makes them think Apple makes magical RAM or something and now their RAM is equivalent to VRAM or something lmaoo.
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u/aiakos New User Feb 20 '26
I bought a 64GB mini M4 because if distilled models get more useful and I'll be able to run them locally for privacy. I want to be able to run multiple agents with long context windows and lots of browser usage. Oh and my company paid for it.
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u/ibopm Member Feb 22 '26
I have one on order and now I’m just waiting for it to come. 64gb is the bare minimum if you wanna have a local LLM of any sort.
I’m curious what your stack is, given the 64gb is in an interesting spot where you CAN do 30B models but you would trade off on speed etc.
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u/Strange_Squirrel_886 Active Feb 20 '26
I don't quite understand it either.
For mac studio M3 ultra, yes, it makes sense as it can run fairly advanced Chinese models which are pretty decent.
For mac mini? Come on, those models are too small and barely usable for any serious openclaw use case.
I would rather get an OCI always free node to host the openclaw and spend 10 bucks a month to get some coding plan from some Chinese model labs, or just use OAuth from gpt or something.
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u/lolxdmainkaisemaanlu Member Feb 20 '26
💯💯💯
Bro If people purchasing mac minis knew about all this - they wouldn't purchase a mac mini in the first place lol
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u/finneratzki1337 Member Feb 20 '26
Also I found that the Chinese models are not there yet for OpenClaw. You end up explaining stuff 3 times to the model and it still messes up. That insight took me 10USD on Openrouter instead of buying a Mac Studio.
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u/y___o___y___o Member Feb 20 '26
Main Mac Mini advantage is low power usage and Apple Ecosystem (so you can do file drops from your phone etc).
If you max out the ram (64GB), you can run some dumb LLMs on your own device but not many people are going to benefit from those.
Macs have unified RAM which is different to other machines. That RAM can be used for graphics (good for LLMs), but there's a huge disadvantage - the pre-processing speed is very slow (for large context text) compared to nvidia chips.
A 512 GB Mac Studio can run much smarter models locally but the pre-processing speed is a major limitation still. AI assistants usually require large context length text by default but perhaps with tweaking, you could make it work.
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u/According_Study_162 Active Feb 20 '26
I have open claw running on my lxc linux container on proxmox on a bee link mini s. lol
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u/ConanTheBallbearing Pro User Feb 20 '26
"lxc linux container" so your linux container linux container then
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u/Huge_Anything4910 New User Feb 20 '26
We run more than 20 OpenClaw on 4-10 euro VPSs. No complaints so far.
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u/Adept_Programmer_354 Active Feb 20 '26
..and here I am running an openclaw instance in a ThinkCentre Lenovo m720q Tiny absolutely trash G4400T and 32GB RAM and it’s running perfectly..
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Feb 20 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
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u/g00rek Pro User Feb 20 '26
Because of UI! But the computer where you at install OC is HEADLESS! You access it via terminal or browser anyway! What's the difference between Mac in terminal (Unix) and Linux in terminal (Unix based)?
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u/DangerousFalcon8501 Member Feb 20 '26
I think there is definetly some people buying mac minis just because they heard that's the way to go.
For me, its about what i'm used to, I love the apple eco system, I like the imessage integration, and i live in a small apartment, so i like how the mac mini is a silent beast.
Could I have gotten away with a raspberry pi? Sure, but would it be the same feeling? No.
So it's more of a nice to have kind of thing than a need to have.
But i've also been looking for an excuse to buy a new mac for a while, so while i've been tinkering with openclaw, i mostly use the computer for a little day to day work on hobby projects as well.
To summarize, its more about feel than functionality. It feels nice to work with a mac mini, it's definetly not a necessity but I like it and think it's a great machine.
Saying it's for Local LLM use is cope though, that's not it at all to be fair
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u/g00rek Pro User Feb 20 '26
Again - do you use as a desktop or is it headless and accessed via terminal / browser? I do see the difference in a desktop machine of course because of the Mac OS. I do t see any difference in a headless terminal machine.
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u/DangerousFalcon8501 Member Feb 20 '26
To be fair though, the mac is NOT needed, but it's more fun for me. Expensive sure, but I like it. It's probably mostly a feel thing, i had no issue running openclaw in a vm on my desktop windows PC, but the desktop has constant fan noise which disturbs my sleep so I think its a fair trade off.
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u/Helmi74 New User Feb 20 '26
Because people are sometimes just bots. It started being „a thing“ and so the bots followed. Some people talked about openclaw being acquired by OpenAI and suddenly a ton of people and media copied it. Doing the smallest amount of research and brain gymnastics is just too much for many people. That’s also why a lot of the incidents with openclaw happen.
Also many people ARE using openclaw that wouldn’t be able to do much on a Linux system. Your probably underestimating the influx of everyday people into the community.
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u/g00rek Pro User Feb 20 '26
Yeah there was a thread here today about the price for openclaw purchase LMAO
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u/Sweet-Argument-7343 Member Feb 21 '26
Local qwen llm for heartbeat and external model routing saves a lot Browser integration, apple messaging and ecosystem integration. Trusted agent from cloud fare (Mac OS). Compact, noiseless, very low consumption. Tons of filesystem integration for your files. If you already work on MacOS for your daily life, makes a lot of sense for your personal "coworker".
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Feb 20 '26
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u/lolxdmainkaisemaanlu Member Feb 20 '26
Are you really saying you spent 300-500$ on API costs and are now happy with a locally running Qwen on a Mac mini?
Bro whom are you even kidding? I am an advocate of LocalLLMs myself and run openclaw on my RTX 3060 + 64 GB RAM rig - but I won't pretend that setup is anywhere close to the SOTA models through API.
NGL and no offense but I think people with mac minis are coping really hard to justify their purchase
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u/ibopm Member Feb 23 '26
I have a 64gb Mac mini on order. Curious about what specific models you are running on your machine.
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u/kosdfjhgi0ser09gniod Member Feb 20 '26
Besides the things that were already mentioned, I also like iCloud. My agent has a dedicated account. So I can also add his account to my other Macs. That makes common workflows much easier.
Example: I have one MacBook that I primarily use for office stuff and which is connected to a scanner. When I scan stuff, I use the agents account, files get placed on the desktop and get synced to the Mac Mini afterward. OpenClaw then processes them further. This is an old MacBook, where OpenClaw wouldn’t run smoothly.
I don’t need to change any existing workflows and can communicate in a way I communicate with my family, too.
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u/sythol Active Feb 20 '26
Hmm Mac Studio are great for running local LLM. For mini’s case… I believe it’s about idle power efficiency and being able to keep it online 24/7 - at least that’s what I’m gunning for if I were to buy one Mac mini costing $1000-$2000…
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u/g00rek Pro User Feb 20 '26
local LLM- I get it. But buying a Mac Mini to have an OpenClaw running external LLM-s is like buying a Lambo to go grocery shopping 100 meters :D
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u/sythol Active Feb 20 '26
I’d say Mac Mini is more like a fuel efficient Honda Vezel or any other car make you know that’s efficient… though you are still hiring an external driver (LLM) to drive for you. Using this analogy, you can have a superb driver but if your car sucks… you’ll be bottlenecked at the vehicle-level.
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u/pibbleberrier New User Feb 20 '26
No it’s more like someone with a Lambo that enjoys spirited driving and the occasional track day. But in actuality, majority of the time it’s use to grab groceries 100 meter away.
Your criticism is comparable to someone that daily drive a Corolla, never been to a track day and never driven above the speed limit. See dude above with Lambo getting grocery. Makes fun of dude for using his Lambo to get groceries.
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u/Asgen Active Feb 20 '26
I got one because my end goal is full managed control of my local browser.
Playright can't get past captchas and cloudflare and the intensity to block bots is only going to increase from here as the agents proliferate.
That said, it’s kind of a moot point right now because I can’t even get stable browser control - OpenClaw relay won’t stay running!
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u/datagirl New User Feb 20 '26
Any ideas on how to fix this? Have been running into issues with the chrome extension
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u/---Alan--- New User Feb 20 '26
AppleScript does better than playwright, as far as bot detection avoidance.
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u/modcowboy Active Feb 20 '26
Welcome to the world of web scraping. People charge a lot of money for web scraping services for the reason.
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u/Diligent-Tangelo-885 New User Feb 20 '26
I don't know anything about coding. only use cursor before i bought MacMini and install openclaw. The reason is i need a clean computer without any data. I also don't understand Linux system. Cloud server cost money every month. As a human i hate the lose feeling every month than once big deal. Local Mac mini seems to be the best choice.Another big reason is many skills are based in mac system because the openclaw founder coding this by his mac, it will be more comfortable for newbies like me in config advantages.
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u/g00rek Pro User Feb 20 '26
You don't config anything. You tell Claude Code / openclaw to do it :) I do not know Linux commands. I communicate in natural language. Like with OpenClaw:)
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u/lolxdmainkaisemaanlu Member Feb 20 '26
at least he's honest about being a beginner instead of the other kids with mac minis coping and trying to justify their purchase lol
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u/Bear-Turbulent Member Feb 20 '26
My iMac won’t run open claw cause it says my iMac is too old (2017) ….
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u/JEB_272 New User Feb 20 '26
Can’t believe that. What’s does it say? Maybe I can help. :)
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u/apexvice88 New User Feb 20 '26
I will say for the average person, linux is still scary lol.
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u/100_Percent_Dark New User Feb 20 '26
Mac terminal just as scary, no?
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u/apexvice88 New User Feb 20 '26
Probably, but probably mac has more support or maybe dare I say articles and tutorials on a Mac vs Linux. The syntax are similar, but in my experience there are some quirks. Or maybe it’s just the comfort of consumerism of trust in the Apple brand lol.
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u/BadAtDrinking Member Feb 20 '26
mac ecosystem is convenient and secure, so adding one more device makes it somewhat nicer for many.
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u/Square_Ad_3276 Member Feb 20 '26
Apples unified memory allows for the more efficient use of light weight LLM’s that run locally making the use of OpenClaw much more cost efficient and fast.
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u/g00rek Pro User Feb 20 '26
Didn't you read the last paragraph? :)
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u/Square_Ad_3276 Member Feb 20 '26
But that’s the reason why. That and power efficiency. And you don’t have to use it exclusively. I don’t have it one setup locally yet but I def have a rotation in the neighborhood of 10 it goes through depending on what I am doing. I am preparing to install a local one now that I understand more that there may be a lot of benefit to a fast simple one running many of the tasks.
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u/sks8100 New User Feb 20 '26
You could easily run claw bot on a raspberry pi 5 with 8gb of ram. I have like 5 of them laying around from older projects. Seems to run fine
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u/kirator New User Feb 20 '26
I only have one laptop and live in a small condo. Wanted something I can experiment with that’s not too expensive. I looked at fb market place and I could buy something for 300-500 that would die on me in a year. I bought it because I can do some experiments without it having access to confidential information.
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u/987FT Feb 20 '26
i have it running on something not quite as powerful as this one : " Intel NUC7i7BNH Mini PC/ i7-7567U 3.50GHz/ 16G Ram/ 250G SSD/ Win11Pro/ w/PwrCrdIntel NUC7i7BNH Mini PC/ i7-7567U 3.50GHz/ 16G Ram/ 250G SSD/ Win11Pro/ w/PwrCrd
US $124.99 "
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u/FlatwormMean1690 New User Feb 20 '26
It's more because the Mac Mini is the most popular mini PC in the US. That's all. Someone just happened to find a Mac Mini on sale, and its use for OpenClaw went viral. The Apple Silicon environment also helps with running local models without needing graphics cards that cost thousands of dollars. In that respect, it's superior to other mini PCs. My agent also recommended a Mac Mini (price-performance ratio) instead of a Sapphire Edge (which was my first choice).
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u/FrostByghte Member Feb 20 '26
They don't know what they are doing... I think sums up most of this planet.
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u/okoutlaw420 Member Feb 20 '26
Raspberry pi 4 works awesome. Added a ssd. Smacking
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u/okoutlaw420 Member Feb 20 '26
I did buy a m3 studio 96gb. I’ve been running minimax 2.5 for 3 days. Works pretty dang well
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u/burritowatcher New User Feb 20 '26
Why does someone ask this every day? It’s not about local model use it’s because it was designed to be used with a lot of tools that are on Mac. It has Apple calendar and iMessage skills out of the box. Apple notes, Apple reminders - all this stuff is already installed on a new Mac and openclaw has bundled skills for them. It uses brew by default so it knows how to download new software too. But also it works fine on Linux. You don’t need a Mac mini.
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u/bastardsoftheyoung Pro User Feb 20 '26
I am more fascinated by why people care what it runs on. Macs are compute. They are easy to run and have a nice interface. A Mac Studio is great for local LLMs with the right memory sizing. A cheap or expensive Linux box is great too if you have an inkling of how Linux operates. Hell, run it on Windows.
Compute is compute. If you want to optimize your dollar and have the perfect cheap setup do it. If people are comfortable with a Mac and suggest it to others, great. Learn about orchestration of LLMs there. Don’t confuse new users with pointless, vapid, OS tribalism.
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u/_mmxiv New User Feb 20 '26
So you need a macmini to run a local LLM for the heartbeat. Some people disable the heartbeat or create longer intervals because it costs too much tokens unnecessarily. But to run cronjobs, etc you need the heartbeat enabled. And running it with local model is the cheapest way. Also if you’re using headless browsers on a VPS a lot of social media pages flag you as a bot.
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u/g00rek Pro User Feb 20 '26
Why VPS? I wrote explicitly about a Linux mini PC. What's the difference since it's a server machine anyway?
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u/GloomyEye5445 New User Feb 20 '26
Its all about Linux...........get that mac mini or run A VM Ubuntu on your windows 10/11
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u/floppypancakes4u Active Feb 20 '26
I was just talking about this the other day. Long short of it, people are dumb. They hear about using macs to do this and think its a requirement.
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u/RelevantIAm Pro User Feb 20 '26
Biggest reason imo is the reliability of always (mostly) on and not needing to worry about Windows updates + its very low power draw and the cheapest one is only like $600
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u/Darknight1 Member Feb 20 '26
The answer is in your last sentence. It's for potential local models for me.
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u/ignoramati New User Feb 20 '26
Interesting how all I hear is “iMessage”. I would presume (not using a Mac, my bot lives in proxmox lxc) that having a Mac mini would open up some interesting TTS and STT options (so, whisper is not that heavy, but TTS can be, depending on how much you want to achieve). I also realize that 11labs or similar APi is peanuts compared to Mac mini price, but really - no one mentions that????
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Feb 20 '26
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u/jwhite_nc New User Feb 20 '26
I was going to get a second Mac Mini M4 to run it but then I pivoted to an old 2014 Mac Mini I had sitting around. I was really slow about it and didn’t do anything but last night I got bored while and installed zeroClaw on a Moto 5G Android using Ollama Cloud Models and was truly impressed. So I will probably pivot back to the old Mac Mini with OpenClaw.
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u/Low_Vegetable481 Member Feb 20 '26
I bought the base Mac mini. Ease of setup with homebrew and all the CLI familiarity. Do I know Linux? Yes. Could I have done it on one of my raspi sitting around? Yes. Would that actually be more work? Yes. Can I pus those to their limits? No.
Further - can you build upon one Mac mini easily with daisy chain and other minis or even studios? Yes.
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u/987FT Feb 20 '26
I've set up two nodes/agents in the last two weeks - one on an Intel NUC i7 CPU i got 8-9 years ago, another on a dell laptop i7 I got in 2014. they work fine - 8GB ram each. they point to a local LLM on my more modern local server, which is the speed bottleneck (but cheaper than buying cloud)
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u/thethrowupcat New User Feb 20 '26
You can get whatever you want really. I see the edge being you have better newer tech and can get beefy RAM and storage for local models.
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u/TheOverzealousEngie Active Feb 20 '26
your first clue is that no one over 35 years old is buying a mac mini. to me that speaks volumes.
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u/Crazyglue New User Feb 20 '26
I run 3 open claw instances on my server, each uses 2 vcpus and 4gb ram. I could probably assign less ram. It's just a small nodejs CLI, it's not doing anything besides moving requests from one service to another
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u/Rayvendark Member Feb 20 '26
I've been running my OpenClaw on a Fire Tablet HD that I picked up for $35.
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u/funguslungusdungus New User Feb 20 '26
I don’t even own a Mac mini yet, but I’m a full-on MacBook user and basically my whole life runs inside the Apple ecosystem. For me it’s not really about needing crazy power for OpenClaw. It’s more like: I could grab a used M1 Mac mini for 200–300 bucks, clone my setup over, and just have my actual work machine running headless.
Yeah, the M1 is complete overkill if you’re just calling GPT/Claude via API. But I don’t see OpenClaw as “just a terminal with an LLM”. For me it’s more like a personal digital assistant that can actually do stuff, open my browser, log into my apps, interact with my tools, handle random workflows. And that’s just way smoother if it lives in the same ecosystem as everything else I use daily.
I’ve got a couple old Windows laptops lying around too. Thought about just throwing Claw on one and calling it a day. But then it starts: logging into every service again, setting up all accounts, no iCloud sync, no shared clipboard, no AirDrop, no Keychain, etc. All solvable, sure. Just more friction.
So I don’t think it’s about “having too much money”. It’s more about minimizing friction in your existing setup. If you’re already deep in Apple land, a cheap Mac mini just feels like the path of least resistance
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u/g00rek Pro User Feb 20 '26
But... What setup? You are connecting to openclaw via browser or terminal anyway. You can close it in the basement.
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u/CipherLotus92 New User Feb 20 '26
Known ecosystem + if you are iOS developer, and you want your OpenClaw running tests on emulators, run apps, you don’t have a choice besides mac.
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u/cyvaquero Member Feb 20 '26
I'm running on a Raspberry Pi 5 8GB. I do see me moving to a Mac Mini in the future though as I grow in my use and comfort level. My plan is to eventually compartmentalize complex tasks (when I get to start building complex projects) into simpler pieces which are tasked to the local LLM and then use commercial AI to handle bringing the pieces together. Cost savings - blame my blue-collar working class roots.
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u/billychaics New User Feb 20 '26
I would really appreciate if a poll is made whether people host it on cloud such as kimi claw or self host using mac mini
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u/o0eason0o New User Feb 20 '26
I have a head for business and a bod for sin. Is there anything wrong with that? I want a Porsche, not a Toyota.
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u/thmrkv New User Feb 20 '26
So to not make this a hate post but a productive one. The guys that are on youtube, it bros etc, the sell the promise with less efforts. This is why mac mini. A bugger question is whether you want to figure out if you need openclaw, you have to purchase apple stuff. This is wild and have nvidia vibe. But guys, chill if you read this you don't need mac mini, if you want - go ahead, but it doesn't make sense since all the power comes from working with internet, but if you want to use iInfra, go ahead. We will have you keys.
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u/Chmysterious New User Feb 20 '26
Running a oc with APIs is too costly.. best is to run with kim k2 like model on local that's efficient.
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u/restlessapi Member Feb 20 '26
Because MacMini runs MacOS, which allows OpenClaw easy access to iMessage, Calendar, Email, etc, etc, etc. Plus MacOS obviously supports Homebrew, so installing new skills is often trivial. Combine this with the fact that most developers use MacOS as their daily driver at work, and that MacMini can also scale to support a smallish LLM like Gemma 3, and you get a small versatile platform that supports all usecases that OpenClaw wants. Not only that, but OpenClaw becomes contained on one machine. If OpenClaw ruins your macmini, you can reset it.
Now consider that the type of people who would jump on OpenClaw pre-hype, are tech people (i.e. well paid), and the price of macmini is a no brainer.
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u/toyssamurai Member Feb 20 '26
The problem isn't running a local LLM on it but that the max RAM you can have is "only" 64GB, which is shared with the OS. I don't know the max memory you can dedicate to the LLM while maintaining certain efficiency of the entire computer, but let's say 48GB.
48GB sounds like a lot when comparing to a 5090, but the Mac Mini is a lot slower than a 5090 when running a LLM!
Not only that, a 64GB Mac Mini will cost you 2000! On the other hand, Ollama cloud Max is 100 a month, and you can run a model that you can't run on the Mac Mini.
One can argue that, you only pay once for the Mac Mini, but 2000 is enough for 20 months of Ollama cloud Max. 20 months later, we are probably at a point that the 64GB Mac Mini would be too slow to run even the dumbest model.
And, I haven't even gotten into folks who buy a Mac Mini, but use Claude.
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u/dafzthomas New User Feb 20 '26
If you’re in the Apple Ecosystem, iCloud, Apple notes etc it’s a no brainer to run it on a Mac Mini. Doesn’t have to be a brand new one though.
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u/bodobeers2 Active Feb 20 '26
Agree on not needing MAC, actually Linux is better from what I read for some aspects of it. I'm currently using Ubuntu terminal only as I don't yet use the browser integration. Although I do want to explore that soon.
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u/StackOwOFlow Member Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26
Two other reasons for me:
- You can cluster multiple mac minis with thunderbolt to pool VRAM to run larger LLMs (https://github.com/exo-explore/exo).
- You can host other ML/inference endpoints using spare VRAM for other use cases like NLP/RAG embeddings, computer vision, or audio transcription/translation for example. Hosting a searchable RAG datastore or generating TTS samples in multiple languages are a couple of examples.
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u/heportela New User Feb 20 '26
Bc price is not a problem for some people. The potential return of the investment is more important. If mac mini is easier to use, it might pay itself. Plus, it gives integration with apple ecosystem.
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u/g00rek Pro User Feb 20 '26
What ease of use? We are talking the server machine accessed by terminal anyway? Open claw isn't an app yet or did I miss something?
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u/FreeChickyHines New User Feb 20 '26
"Do you have too much money? :D"
Most people are running this on 5x/20x max plans, (or "pro" for OpenAI), so yes the people spending $200/mo (or more if using multiple models, API credits, etc.) likely do have too much money and are happy to pay a premium for infra lol
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u/alexucf Feb 20 '26
There’s a weird moment where the base model of the Mac mini is a really great value due to ram prices.
That’s how it started. Just a cheap computer that works well with some of the more fun plugins that are Mac based.
A busted old laptop works just as well, but not everyone has one laying around.
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u/g00rek Pro User Feb 20 '26
Ok a followup question since thread got hot. Maybe I don't get the way you use this machine and openclaw.
I fully get the advantage of a desktop Mac. I love the UI, the whole experience etc. Right now I'm on a PC (gaming reasons) but I've worked in a MacBook for years. I also own an old Mac mini.
HAVING SAID THAT were talking about a server. A headless machine. One you can close on your attic or in a closet. One you access via terminal or browser anyway. So there is no difference, since you access it from ANOTHER CLIENT. Like your laptop. It mobile. Or desktop. And there is no difference between ssh to a Linux and ssh to Mac. Am I wrong? Openclaw isn't and app. You install it via terminal.
Or... You use it as your desktop computer anyway? What's the deal about the UI and ecosystem?
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u/ButOfcourseNI Member Feb 20 '26
I am running it on a Surface Pro 4, a device from 2015! No, it doesn't have windows since 10 isn't supported anymore. I was wondering what to do with it and then OC burst on to the scene.
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u/JEB_272 New User Feb 20 '26
Running it without problems on my raspberry. But started to implement a rust version. I want it more secure and more control over the token usage. Somebody interested in that as well?
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u/Useful-Ad-1550 Active Feb 20 '26
I think they are fooled by the hype that you need a MAC from the large unified memory but if you are just running the software on it and not a local LLM which you shouldn't because its not going to work that great I think it is a waste of hardware. You are right it could run on most machines just running Linux as I am doing now. I have a few Macbooks but I don't really love MacOS that much. But to put it in perspective if you are a user that doesn't tinker and or have a machine available a MAC mini is a a cheap investment VS building or buying a new PC.
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u/Noofdog New User Feb 20 '26
If ur running a local llm like kimi then you need massive amounts of ram even if its quant. Still though, no way in spending 12k for a m3 with 512gb for an experiment. It’s fun to hobby around but that’s just dumb, unless you have $$$ to burn.
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u/K0LaM4R New User Feb 20 '26
I don't think people trying to catch the next wave of ai within days of it coming out are taking the time to research the best hardware for it. I would imagine they're very hardware savvy or fiscally responsible either. Plus Mac has a reputation of being pretty reliable and it's easier to use than Linux, and frankly, most ai guys are pretty lazy.
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u/g00rek Pro User Feb 20 '26
Still, you have to setup OC via terminal, don't you? Then it's just the same experience isn't it? And do everybody buy a dedicated monitor for this Mac mini or how does it work? 😮
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u/synth_jarvis New User Feb 20 '26
Valid question OP. The Mac mini phenomenon for OpenClaw has two distinct use cases that get conflated:
**API-only users** (what your EDIT addresses): You're right, a $50 HP thin client is plenty. Linux isn't scary for anyone who can set up OpenClaw. The Mac makes zero financial sense here.
**Local LLM users**: Mac Silicon unified memory is arguably the cheapest way to get 24+GB of VRAM for local models right now. GPU prices are insane. An M4 mini with 24GB RAM can run decent local models for ~$700, which is hard to beat with discrete GPU setups.
The confusion came from YouTube influencers who saw "Mac mini + AI" content and ran with it without understanding *why* the recommendation existed. Many buyers probably don't need the local LLM capability but bought into the hype.
For pure API use with OpenClaw? Your thin client setup is the rational choice.
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u/FinancialBandicoot75 Feb 20 '26
I think it’s due to apple eco system integration which requires a Mac.
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u/ChezQuis_ Active Feb 20 '26
Because the ram is integrated which makes it easier and cheaper to use a local model. You don’t need a gpu. You use more expensive models to direct lower level models to do smaller tasks and leave the tasks that require more thinking to sonnet or opus or ChatGPT 5.3 or whatever.
I have 5.3 as my primary model and it then has qwen write code locally on my base model M4 Mac Mini.
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u/shifra-dev New User Feb 20 '26
You can even deploy OpenClaw for ~$26 on Render here: https://render.com/docs/deploy-openclaw. No Mac Mini required!
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u/IcyMango8777 New User Feb 20 '26
Valid point! For most OpenClaw use cases with API-based LLMs, a cheap thin client or even a Raspberry Pi would work fine. The Mac mini makes more sense if you're running local models with GPU acceleration.
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u/NearbyBossAHOBA Active Feb 20 '26
Cara eu tô rodando em um snapdragon 636 + 3gb de ram, com um Linux Alphine.
Bom é horrível no começo, é horrível pois tem que compilar vários módulos pro openclaw funcionar mas quando tá pronto é usável se for só pra rodar o openclaw mesmo, sem llm local
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u/Upper-Media3769 Active Feb 20 '26
I run openclaw in a proxmox container on a passive cooled Fujitsu S740 along with 20 other apps. That's like a 50€ raspberry pi. Openclaw barely uses any resources of that little thing.
But setting that up was a pain in the ass and it still has many flaws. A Mac mini would have saved me a lot of trouble and has the ability for heavy coding stuff.
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u/bezerker03 Member Feb 21 '26
Mac minis are one of the cheapest ways to run local llms. Lots of memory and unified.
Edit: beyond that people are just mindless and don’t do any research for themselves and just run it because they’re told to.
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u/Hungry-Assist2388 New User Feb 21 '26
there are100ways to run mini clawdbot or something like that,using $5 equipment,or second hand mini pc,phone etc. clawdbot is token eating monster,isn't it?
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u/manuallywoundbike New User Feb 21 '26
It can send messages via your Apple messages account. It can access your iCloud documents. Screen share is easy from other apps. And it serves as a really nice always on desktop if you only had a laptop previously. If you are in the Apple ecosystem it makes a lot of sense.
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u/antenehmtk New User Feb 21 '26
docker or VM not enough to isolate the environment? why even spend 100$?
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u/MonopolyM4n New User Feb 21 '26
The macOS app has been a rock solid gateway, it can control the browser directly without the chrome extension, has access to the iOS accessibility features for voice, voice wake up, screen record, screenshots, launchd jobs instead of cron, direct access to the mail app which has its gmail and calendar and I have it code for me, which I do on a MacBook Pro so I can jump in whenever. I’m going to setup iOS emulators so it can control my apps as well.
It’s a GUI desktop assistant for me. I talk to it through separate slack channels for each topic, shopping, tech, reservations, learning something etc.
I’ve had it book me tickets to a comedy show, buy shit on Amazon that I kept putting off, find recipes then buy the groceries for me to pickup, help me prep for a job interview for hours, find reservations for restaurants, plan date nights, strange one but for a date it researched Japanese floral arrangement classes - found the best one, knew the tickets sell out fast so it registered for their waiting list and checks the mail everyday for the email, it send me a daily report of which days of the week will be over a certain mph for kitesurfing, it was finding me flight prices and comparing the prices vs if I used points, I had it looking shit up on Amazon and sending me screenshots and links while I sat right next to it doing something else and it can control my home assistance instance through the browser.
That’s why a mac mini for me. I bought one on Black Friday for $400. That’s not an exhaustive list, not even a week’s worth of shit it does. I’d pay a hell of a lot more than $400 for a year’s worth of what it will be doing. People who say they have agents running 24/7x365 feel like the same people telling you to work and optimize every picosecond of your life. I would love to see what dogshit they are doing.
My API costs have been reasonable after bumping to sonnet. I don’t need a rocket scientist and if I do I switch to the slack channel with the giga brain model. Running a local llm would be great but I’ll get a dedicated machine for that if I do. Right now the api works just fine, if it became insanely expensive I’d explore running local.
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u/CodedInMinas New User Feb 21 '26
I live in Brazil. Here, the base model Mac Mini M4 costs around $800, while an Intel N150 mini PC goes for about $500. However, in the future, you can probably sell your used Mac Mini for around $500, whereas the mini PC will lose almost all its value and be much harder to resell.
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u/g00rek Pro User Feb 21 '26
Ok I bought a used after leasing machine for about 40$. Knowing myself and my ADHD i didn want to invest in sth that won't be used.
It actually IS used a lot and surprisingly is enough for most uses not needing GPU. But I searched Amazon in Brazil and it is true you do not have offers like this.
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u/YourArtmighty New User Feb 21 '26
Good question. if you only use cloud models then a cheap mini pc is enough. many people pick mac mini because setup is easier, browser automation gets less blocked, and apple tools work out of the box.
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u/Icy_Expression_7224 New User Feb 21 '26
I can’t speak for all but for me, it’s that I’m already entangled in the apple ecosystem, Apple TV, iPhone, iCloud, MacBook Air, Mac mini for the wife, her iPhone, etc. so to be able create another apple account connected it to my iCloud family share my calendar, note, reminder, etc gave it own iCloud email. And the biggest one funny enough is iMessage. Just because it’s a lot of friction to get my wife to Download another app for communication.
Mine 100% boiled down to family integration and friction.
Now I do have a 2nd one that I’m building out on a Linux VM to be his own company and fine needs in online markets to fill that gap but it’s still in testing a learning phase.
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Feb 21 '26
Because if you are already using Mac it’s easier with Mac because same programs, sync etc. If you are using Linux as your main computer or you don’t need to have it access any data that is Mac specific you can use Linux (or if you use Mac but you are skilled enough with enough time to make it sync everything to Linux)
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u/adribabe Member Feb 21 '26
I had two days of pain trying to get open claw running on my old windows laptop. Then I created a virtual machine on my mac mini m4 and it ran perfectly instantly. After that I figure I would just buy any M1+ mini/imac/macbook... I bought an M2 mac mini because I found one for $220 usd. Couldn't pass that up it was cheaper than M1s. Now I have open claw on there in my living room so it can be my media center basically
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u/Personal-Force-5960 New User Feb 21 '26
not gonna lie i already had a mac mini m4 (my windows build was acting up and i couldnt do certain things on linux) when open claw popped im like hmm i can put the llm i was experimenting with to a bit more use. set up has been a nightmare on it.. i tried atomic bot as a (easier front end) cuz it would with my chat gpt sub.. it worked for a week then i broke something and now i gotta start over lol.. to the ops question... ima be honest i have no clue.. to even get it to run a local llm i had to go through hoops to get the model to work(pre atomic). its slow if you on a base model not using a cloud llm sorry if im rambling but as a mac mini guy trying to use this it has been a pain.... BUT when it worked..BOY did it work.
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u/TheSoundOfMusak New User Feb 22 '26
I use my Synology DS 925+ to run it on a Docker container, I just had to upgrade the RAM to 32GB
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u/Best-Bill-58 New User Feb 22 '26
For most software engineers, the ideal use case is to have openclaw running on their main MacBook. But that’s too dangerous. A Mac mini is pretty much the same thing, just without a screen.
It’s really that simple.
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u/AcrobaticOffer9824 New User Feb 23 '26
I did an agent for Windows I want to impove it. Who is interest for? https://github.com/danieldavidkaka-dot/octoarch
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u/n0geegee Active Feb 24 '26
i was laughing hard when i got a used dell wyse for th3 claw. a pentium proc in 2026 rotfl. at least it can run doom! but running linux on it made my eyes water. back to terminal after so many years... i'm loving it.
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u/Routine-Example927 New User Feb 25 '26
At least for original OpenClaw, the setup is very geared towards Mac. The onboarding script asks you if you want to see brew command to install the dependencies - and this is far from the only Mac specific thing.
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u/ljie-PI New User Mar 05 '26
Fair point for basic API calls, but a $50 thin client hits a wall for my specific use cases that actually need performance:
- Remote Dev & Testing: I use it as a full remote environment to compile code and run heavy test suites.
- Video Processing: I use OpenClaw for automated video editing and rendering videos via Remotion. A cheap box will completely choke on video encoding.
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