Show HN: Pulse Local, a Mac budgeting app whose AI models run on your machine
pulseos.financeHi HN, I'm Niz. Pulse Local is a budgeting app for Mac (Apple Silicon, beta) that answers questions about your spending with models that run on your machine. Local mode needs no account. The ledger and your questions stay on the machine, and the app sends no analytics or crash logs.
I felt there are not enough consumer apps that run locally with no calls to the outside world that help us manage sensitive corners of our lives. This app in its local variant only downloads a couple of models and occasional updates, it does not send any analytics nor data.
Features-wise, Pulse local is a complete budgeting app that offers an assistant built on top of a fine-tuned model and thousands of rules embedded in the code itself. I'm sharing it for free with options to help me continue experimenting with fine-tuning and expanding along this direction.
How it works: you import a CSV from any bank, in any currency. When you ask a question, a tuned Qwen3 0.6B model reads it into a structured query, and code, not the model, does the money math against the ledger. A 4B checker model double-checks each money answer; when the two readings disagree, the app says it is not sure instead of guessing. That change took wrong answers from about one in five to 5 in 494 questions across our last three tests. The write-up covers how we test, the designs that failed, and the limits of the claim: https://pulseos.finance/pulse-local/writing/agree-or-not-sur...
The tuned weights are on Hugging Face (PulseOS/pulse-local-qwen3-0.6b).
Limitations: the first start downloads about 2.9 GB of models. With the checker on, a money answer takes 12 to 14 seconds (you can turn the checker off). Small models can still misread an open-ended question. The app answers in English. Mac only for now; Windows is next.
The app is free. An optional Connected mode (Sync Pass, $29/year) syncs US banks through Plaid; transactions pass through our server's memory and are not stored.
Feedback welcome, especially on wrong answers and on questions it should handle but does not.
Makes me want to play around with the nemotron finance[0] fine tune released a while back..
[0]https://fastino.ai/blog/fastino-nemotron-3-5-lightning-finan...
Very nice project. I think this is is in the step of the right direction for agent-driven assistance.
> How it works: you import a CSV from any bank, in any currency.
I think this is where you're going to lose people. If you're having to pull in data from multiple different sources, each with their own flow for exporting, I think this might be a non-starter for creating good financial habbit.
I recnetly had success integrating my local AI agent with Monarch money via an open source monarch MCP project. It took a bit of (AI) hacking the login stuff, but now I'm able to pull transactions, query patterns, have a daily report generated from hermes, etc. Much more technical that your target audience but possibly offers some inspiration.
Appreciate the feedback. There's also a connected mode leveraging Plaid where transactions pass through servers memory and never stored. Outside the US, CSV is the only path for now otherwise agree CSV export is a chore for multi-bank users.
You could add support for something like simplefin.org, which provides an API for connecting to many different financial orgs. It is what I have been using for my local setup with Actual budget.
Thanks, will surely look into this.
Does your financial orgs actually support simplefin or are you using simplefin bridge?
Bridge is actually provided by mx.com, pretty much the same service as Plaid.
Actual budget is good. Connectivity in Australia sucks though so I've kludged my own approach (open banking connections to a single local aggregator then puppeteer to sign in and get an access token, then directly calling the aggregators internal APIs with it and pushing the data into a local Actual server using Actual's APIs).
A lot of banks make it easier to export PDF statements. I wonder if you could try adding the ability to extract transactions from a PDF. I've been working on something more limited (extracting just the account balance) with Qwen3 4B with decent success.
I've tried with some success but will spend more time on the input layer.
There’s similar support from many banks in many countries. But obviously will be a bunch of work to support them all.
It also requires you generally to trust some third party with your data.
Here’s an API one for Australia / New Zealand / USA: https://redbark.com/developers
Thanks, I was planning to add country integrations outside the US. Appreciate the pointer here.
I love the idea of local only apps woth no network comms. I do wish macOS had some way you could enforce that out of the box though. Rather than trust the claims of the developer.
Another app I love that does the same. Queryable which lets you natural language search your photos on device on iOS and predates most of the current AI craze (2022) and also apple adding this themselves to photos: https://queryable.app/
Indeed, macOS only blocks incoming traffic. For this app and in "local mode", there are only two kinds of requests: one to download the models from HF and an optional version check that sends nothing about the user and can be turned off. A simple test, once you download, try turning off your wifi and use the app.
Little snitch is the best solution for firewalling off applications from the network
This is the most confusing product page I've ever seen. What is it even trying to tell me?
Apologies, will try to simplify. In a nutshell: Pulse Local is a free budgeting app where you could import bank transactions and ask about spending with the AI running on your machine so neither the data nor your questions leave (in "local mode").
Very cool. What does it use the model for? Could you replace it with something lighter, like some classifiers[0]? Or do you need the chat? Besides the chat, what other tasks is the model used for? Thank you!
0: https://jeffyclassify.com/blog/when-llms-fail-at-classificat...
I'm assuming each model might require it's own tweaks to work functionally the same?
Still it could be handy to be able to do that locally, maybe model tweaks could be shared back upstream.
The bridge between deterministic accounting principles to non-deterministic patterns trying to simulate it at will is a pretty big thing to cover.
Congrats on launching, I’m working on a similar idea with local models.
Thanks and good luck!
I use budgeting apps on a daily basis, and I'll just share my personal feedback: I'm absolutely not downloading ~3 gigs for a budget app. Everything I need to "ask" the app is already available to me in the form of reports, charts, and tables. I don't really have many open-ended questions about my budget because anything important to track is already handled deterministically.
Also yes, it's local but the data you're importing is already with a private organization on the cloud. In that sense, having a local copy of it does not really do anything for me in terms of privacy etc.
As I said, I use budgeting apps daily (one for personal use (self-made), another for business (very old freenium era software that has not failed me in the last 5+ years of self-hosting it)) and I do not see any need for generative AI in that workflow from my pov. YMMV
> Also yes, it's local but the data you're importing is already with a private organization on the cloud. In that sense, having a local copy of it does not really do anything for me in terms of privacy etc.
I'm not sure what you mean? Surely processing on your computer instead of Anthropic's computer is a significant privacy improvement?
Thanks for the feedback and describing your budgeting routine and needs. Just to add that the 2.5G checker can be switched off in Settings. The reader is only a small tuned 0.6B model (397 MB).
Chat is optional, the app is a complete and free budgeting app (reports, rules, money flow, forecast etc.). As for privacy, "local" usually means your data not your questions, sure the banks hold the transactions but your questions and analysis shouldn't go to the cloud hence this project.
Why not leverage Apple Foundational models?
Downloads will already be on the machine.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundationmodels
I've tried, they were really bad for this use case.
long landing pages are a sign of AI psychosis
you only need 2 sections. an above the fold area and something below the fold. simple.
thanks for making this. “its private” is not a selling point, whats other differentiators does it have? really the AI analysis and potential agentic aspect right?
you could point out that it doesnt use data centers or harm the environment without explaining how or what that means upfront
All fair points, will simplify the page.
Your domain name is younger than 30 days old so my firewall blocks it. :/
So tune your firewall? Sounds like you’re asking OP to fast forward time so his understandably brand new domain passes your weird age hurdle?