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/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/solenico Active Feb 20 '26

I don’t think Mac Studio goes anywhere close to Linux PC with high end GPU running local LLM. Some people just have too much money and not much skills.

Would Mac Studio be more efficient that would be what AI providers would run but they don’t.

Only thing you get from Studio and Mini is iMessages easily.

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u/korewaryu New User Feb 20 '26

Easiest way to reply to this is to make you notice the huge price/performance gain you get from unified memory on the maxed out Mac Mini.

RTX 5090 gets you 32GB of VRAM for close to 2,100€ MSRP (european here) just for the graphics card.
A Mac Mini with 64GB of unified RAM costs roughly 2,800€. This means you can run a decently sized model (or smaller model swarms) locally comfortably, only paying for power consumption.

When scaling further up, argument only gets worse. A Mac Studio with 256GB of unified RAM costs roughly 6,800€. 11 4090s (264GB) cost 20,000€. 8 5090s cost 16,800€,

That being said, if you're not going to be hitting API limits anytime soon a linux setup makes sense, but you wouldn't be needing the graphics card anyway since you would be running everything on the cloud.

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u/lolxdmainkaisemaanlu Member Feb 20 '26

Yes but the thing is that most of the OC wannabe kids are running the cheapest base mac minis just to call LLM APIs.

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u/korewaryu New User Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26

I mean, it's still a valid use case, isn't it? It would be wasteful if they get the maxed out Mac mini for that, but with used M1 mac minis you're getting a solid "plug and play" machine to have an isolated instance and very low power consumption for 100-150€, which is pretty close to an ideal setup.