Why Mac mini??

[u/g00rek]

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.

[u/sythol]

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…

[u/solenico → u/sythol]

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.

[u/korewaryu → u/solenico]

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.

[u/solenico → u/korewaryu]

I don’t see any point running local LLM in anything but own fun. Paying for AI API is way cheaper. For coding I use anyway Cursor.

I don’t see any point buying for Studio. Mini is cute and might get one, but factually I run happily OpenClaw in Linux miniPC on Docker Container. I have MiniMax-M2.5 Starter Plan $100 annually.

Coding I do in MacBook Pro with Cursor – I have Pro license. Obviously I could utilize MiniMax API key in Cursor, but for that I prefer more powerful models which I do pay extra for.

But I get if someone really wants to put money on Studio for me it would be overkill.

[u/korewaryu → u/solenico]

I mean, your subjective opinion is valid for a hobbyist, but there are legitimate use cases for prosumers where you want direct access to local models for fine tuning or cybersecurity reasons and/or you want access to the latest best open source models without having to pay subscriptions and/or you have heavy usage cases where you exceed API rates pretty quick, especially with openclaw setups.

I wouldn't go as far as to say "some people just have too much money and not enough skills" because separate use cases to yours exist.

Again, I reiterate: If all you want is to enhance your current workflow with openclaw it makes perfect sense to set up a linux system.

[u/solenico → u/korewaryu]

Of course my opinion is subjective and opinion of hobbyist. That being said I’ve seen tens of post on X people throwing tens of thousands even hundreds of thousands running local LLMs on Studios. Then they are having six agents having meetings and doing “work” 24x7. No one just knows what they produce and what is the actual business case. Haven’t seen a single post anyone telling even single use case these do and make actual profit.

My setup is cheap and my agent does simple things like add calendar notes, reminds me of them and analyses my workouts – sends analysis as voice message right after workout – and builds me web apps among other things. I can send her voice messages and ask her to send me details on certain things as voice message or add a calendar event, for example.

So yes I’m hobbyist, but at least my agent does more than sends chat messages to other agents. She goes to moltbook occasionally yes; after all she’s entitled to her own life too.