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Cloud when you want it. Local when it matters.
Most agents make you choose: rent their cloud, or run something yourself. Elia ships both — one app, one account, a switch between them. In local mode the agent runs on your machine and only your account data reaches us. These are the products Elia positions against, with facts verified against the Apple App Store and public sources on 2026-11-05.
Grok Bot — X Corp · App Store 6794501026 · first released 2026-08-11. Claude Duet — Anthropic · App Store 6803276000 · first released 2026-10-26 (waitlist). ChatGPT — OpenAI OpCo, LLC. DeepSeek — Hangzhou DeepSeek AI · App Store 6737597349.
Cloud mode
The agent runs in our infrastructure, behind the gateway, in a workspace that belongs to your account alone. Nothing to install, nothing to host — you open the app and hand it work. This is the mode that exists and is verified today.
Local mode
The same agent engine runs inside the app, on your Mac. The gateway keeps the account — sign-in, payment, credits, usage — and nothing else. Sessions, memory, tasks, transcripts and files stay on your disk and are never uploaded.
| Dimension | Elia | Grok Bot | Claude Duet | ChatGPT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where the agent runs Elia ships both and you switch between them: run the agent on our cloud, or run it on your Mac with the local engine. The products below are cloud-only. | Cloud or your machine | Their cloud | Their cloud | Their cloud |
| Runs fully offline In local mode the agent, its memory and your files never leave the machine. No upload, nothing to wait on. | ||||
| What the vendor still receives in local mode Local mode keeps the gateway for the account only — sign-in, payment, credits and usage metering. Sessions, memory, tasks, transcripts and files are not sent. | Auth, billing, usage | Everything | Everything | Everything |
| Where your logins live In local mode credentials stay on the machine. In cloud mode they are held per-user, never in a shared tenancy. | Your machine | Their servers | Their servers | Their servers |
| Real developer terminal Elia ships a terminal in the sidebar, next to the agent. | ||||
| Per-user data isolation | One workspace per user | Shared tenancy | Shared tenancy | Shared tenancy |
| Agents run in parallel | Limited | |||
| Approvals before sending / paying | Limited | |||
| Self-hostable backend | ||||
| Works if the vendor pivots Local mode is a directory you own on your own disk, not an account on someone's platform. | ||||
| Open, documented API | Partial | Partial | Partial |
Where Elia wins
Every competitor above is cloud-only: if their cloud is down, rate-limited or pivots, your agent stops with it. Elia runs the same harness in their cloud or on your Mac, adds a real developer terminal, and keeps hard per-user isolation in both modes.
Where they win
A cloud agent is effortless — nothing to install, nothing to host. Elia's cloud mode matches that, and local mode is the option they do not offer: one switch, and the work stays on your machine.
Fair, verifiable, not mudslinging
Every claim here is checkable against the store listings and public sources dated above. Where a competitor's capability is unclear, it is marked rather than overstated.