Show HN: Pulse Local, a Mac budgeting app whose AI models run on your machine

Show HN: Pulse Local, a Mac budgeting app whose AI models run on your machine(pulseos.finance)

78 points by niztk 4 hours ago | 38 comments

Hi 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.

zyk_computer 16 minutes ago |

I'm curious why you built a full budgeting app instead of adding a local AI chat to an existing open source app like Actual Budget.

niztk 7 minutes ago | |

Thanks. Well, accuracy depends on the code that owns the ledger, which does all the math against the app data model. I also added checks that compare a couple of readings of the question through the same calculation layer. Since there are also many other moving parts coupled with the ledger (categories, rules, transfers, refunds), it just felt better to own the whole stack.

terwint 3 hours ago |

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.

i_am_a_squirrel 45 minutes ago | |

"if you're having to pull in data from multiple different sources, each with their own flow for exporting"

you say this, but i got ChatGpt to just open chrome logged into two credit cards and a bank app and download everything with a certain criteria (i did this to populate items in a travel split app). So maybe it's not that bad

xyst 32 minutes ago | | |

You trust anything run through a black box model to remain private? Laughable.

niztk 2 hours ago | |

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.

lathiat 2 hours ago | | |

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

cortesoft 2 hours ago | | |

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.

post-it 2 hours ago | | |

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.

lathiat 2 hours ago |

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/

unsnap_biceps 2 hours ago | |

Little snitch is the best solution for firewalling off applications from the network

niztk 2 hours ago | |

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.

seemaze 2 hours ago |

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...

nico 3 hours ago |

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...

j45 3 hours ago | |

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.

tantalor 2 hours ago |

This is the most confusing product page I've ever seen. What is it even trying to tell me?

niztk 2 hours ago | |

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").

robotresearcher 1 hour ago |

Feedback: manually categorizing transactions is a common and tedious task. Your 'for review' transaction list shows the category, but it's not editable. To review and fix the category, you must:

- read the category

- click on the '...' button at the end of the line (not near the thing you want to correct, and not my first guess for settings the category)

- this creates a popup

- mouse into the popup and click on the dropdown for setting the category.

Just have the category label in the list clickable, to show the category dropdown.

It saves one click, two mouse movements, and having to figure out that '...' is the action you need to fix a category.

niztk 1 hour ago | |

Thanks much! Will ship a fix soon.

snehesht 2 hours ago |

Congrats on launching, I’m working on a similar idea with local models.

niztk 2 hours ago | |

Thanks and good luck!

altmanaltman 2 hours ago |

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

niztk 2 hours ago | |

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.

lathiat 2 hours ago | | |

Why not leverage Apple Foundational models?

Downloads will already be on the machine.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundationmodels

post-it 2 hours ago | |

> 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?

yieldcrv 1 hour ago |

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

niztk 1 hour ago | |

All fair points, will simplify the page.

kccqzy 26 minutes ago | | |

Please don’t. This is really a matter of personal preferences. I like long informative landing pages that as I scroll, give me more and more reasons to try the software.

Compare the omp landing page a few months ago versus now: https://web.archive.org/web/20260624030333/https://omp.sh/ versus https://web.archive.org/web/20261007154534/https://omp.sh/ The former does a compelling job telling me why I should try it by listing its advantages. By the time I got to hashline I became convinced. The latter landing page has a single sentence that’s generic and vague. I would not have tried omp at all if its landing page looked like what it is today.

arm32 3 hours ago |

Your domain name is younger than 30 days old so my firewall blocks it. :/

loloquwowndueo 3 hours ago | |

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?