---
title: "Free Local Model Beats Cloud-Billed Ones? Ollaya Hits 509 Points on HN This Week: Open Source Weekly Picks"
description: "This week's biggest buzz in the open source community is around Ollaya, which brought the pay-per-use Jev judgment model fully local, hitting 509 points and 126 comments on HN. The same week, Jared Palmer open-sourced kev, with accuracy just one percentage point behind closed-source models; for those looking for a free Mac Photoshop alternative, we'll get to why Compositor hit 5.7k stars in 30 days."
canonical_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/open-source-weekly/open-source-weekly-2026-09-26"
author: "Mark Ku"
author_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku"
site: "Mark Ku's Tech Notes"
date_published: "2026-09-26T02:00:00.000Z"
category: "Open Source Weekly"
tags: ["open-source", "podcast", "開源工具", "開源", "Ollaya", "kev", "Compositor", "本地AI", "判斷模型", "Mac軟體", "開源好物週報"]
language: "en"
license: "CC BY 4.0"
license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
attribution: "when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original"
---

# Free Local Model Beats Cloud-Billed Ones? Ollaya Hits 509 Points on HN This Week: Open Source Weekly Picks

> **TL;DR** — Ollaya brings the proprietary Jev judgment model fully local with Ollama-compatible CLI and wire-identical /v1/ endpoints, processing in 8，10 ms on RTX 4090.

## Opening

This week's biggest open-source buzz belongs to Ollaya, which brings the entire pay-as-you-go Jev judgment model stack back to run locally, racking up 509 points and 126 comments on HN. The same week also saw Jared Palmer open-source kev, whose accuracy trails closed-source models by just one percentage point. And if you've been looking for a free Mac alternative to Photoshop, stick around, we'll get to why Compositor hit 5.7k stars in 30 days.

## This Week's Open-Source Picks

### 1. Ollaya: Bringing the Pay-As-You-Go Jev Judgment Model Fully Local
- **What it is**: Ollaya takes the recently viral, pay-per-use TypeSafe Jev "judgment model" and moves the entire stack to run locally, aimed at engineers who value self-hosting and don't want to send their data out. It's Apache-2.0 licensed and even supports Windows.
- **This week's buzz**: It topped Hacker News with 509 points and 126 comments, the highest-buzz project of the week.
- **Key features**: The CLI commands are a direct copy of Ollama's (serve / run / pull / list / ps / show / rm / cp / stop / create), so anyone who's used Ollama has zero learning curve. Its endpoints are wire-identical to TypeSafe (/v1/systemone, /v1/decisions, /v1/models), meaning code that previously hit cloud APIs can run just by swapping the base URL. The binary itself is a compact ~3 MB ONNX graph, while the actual weights are pulled directly from safetensors on Hugging Face, verified with commit pinning and sha256 checks. Official numbers show laya:en answering five questions in just 8 to 10 milliseconds on an RTX 4090.
- **Quick start**: One line on Linux / macOS with `curl -fsSL https://ollaya.dev/install.sh | sh`, or `irm https://ollaya.dev/install.ps1 | iex` on Windows. Once installed, just run `ollaya run laya --preset triage "I was charged twice..."` to get results.
- **Comparison**: The key difference from Ollama lies in the model type: Ollama runs generative LLMs that stream tokens one at a time, while Ollaya runs judgment models that return calibrated probabilities in a single forward pass. Compared to TypeSafe's official Jev cloud API, it eliminates the API bill and keeps data on your own machine, though HN commenters have noted it still noticeably lags behind Jev on harder questions.
- **Best for**: Engineers who value self-hosting and keeping data in-house, and who want to use judgment models for classification, routing, or moderation tasks.
- **Link**: [https://ollaya.dev/](https://ollaya.dev/)

### 2. kev (jaredpalmer/kev): Train Your Own Jev-Level Judgment Model
- **What it is**: An open-source judgment model from Jared Palmer, the creator of Turborepo and Formik, built around the idea that "you can train your own version of that closed-source cloud model." The weights are downloadable, and it comes with full training scripts.
- **This week's buzz**: It shot up to 7.1k GitHub stars in 30 days, with the author's reputation drawing extra attention to this new project.
- **Key features**: It ships in four sizes ranging from 0.8B to 27B, covering everything from laptops to data centers. A single request can mix true/false, multiple-choice, and rating-scale question types, and every checkpoint comes with temperature calibration for trustworthy confidence scores. The interface aligns with TypeSafe's System One, so existing clients can connect without modification, and you can continue training from an existing checkpoint with a single command. It also includes a Modal deployment script for spinning up an auto-scaling private HTTPS endpoint.
- **Quick start**: Requires Python 3.12+. Run `git clone https://github.com/jaredpalmer/kev.git && cd kev`, then `uv sync --extra serve`, and finally `uv run --extra serve python -m kev.serve --run jaredpalmer/kev-4b --port 8009` to spin up a local service. Even the 0.8B version runs fine on an Apple Silicon Mac.
- **Comparison**: Its direct competitor is TypeSafe's closed-source Jev. The README itself reports Kev-27B scoring 0.848 against Jev's 0.857 on new sources, just a one-point gap, though it still trails on knowledge-heavy tasks (MMLU: Kev-27B at 0.84 vs. Jev at 0.90). Compared with this week's other pick, Ollaya, the two are complementary: Ollaya handles pulling and running the model, while Kev gives you weights you can actually retrain.
- **Best for**: Teams that want to fine-tune a judgment model on their own labeled data, or need trainable weights instead of a black-box API.
- **Link**: [https://github.com/jaredpalmer/kev](https://github.com/jaredpalmer/kev)

### 3. Compositor: An MIT-Licensed Native Mac Photoshop Alternative
- **What it is**: A native Swift image editor for Mac. The author's motivation is refreshingly blunt: Photoshop is too expensive, GIMP feels unnatural to use, so this was built for people who need to edit, remove backgrounds, and design covers, completely free.
- **This week's buzz**: It hit 5.7k GitHub stars in 30 days.
- **Key features**: A full layer system with folders, Photoshop-style blend modes, paintable/fillable/blurrable/featherable layer masks, and clipping masks, plus adjustment layers like Hue/Saturation, Curves, Levels, and Gaussian Blur. It can import PSD/PSB files directly and also supports JPEG, PNG, HEIC, TIFF, SVG, and RAW formats. Selection and retouching tools are all here (clone stamp, spot healing brush, magic wand), along with filters for Camera Raw and background removal, all with live preview. It supports non-destructive transforms as well as edge and guide alignment.
- **Quick start**: Install with one line via `brew install --cask robbietilton-compositor`, or download it from GitHub Releases. Requires macOS 26.5 or later.
- **Comparison**: It positions itself squarely as a free alternative to Photoshop, the difference being that Photoshop requires a subscription while Compositor is MIT-licensed and completely free. Compared to GIMP, which is a general-purpose image editor with its own distinct interface conventions, Compositor was designed from the ground up around compositing and post-production workflows, giving it a feel that's closer to what Mac users are already used to.
- **Best for**: Mac users who want to edit photos, remove backgrounds, and design blog covers for free.
- **Link**: [https://github.com/robbietilton/Compositor](https://github.com/robbietilton/Compositor)

## Closing

This week's three tools happen to address two distinct pain points: Ollaya and kev are both about moving pay-as-you-go judgment AI onto your own machine, while Compositor swaps a subscription-based creative tool for a free one. If I could only install one, I'd pick Ollaya: a one-line install lets you take over code that previously hit an API, and you save on the bill immediately. See you next week for more open-source finds.

---

## About this article and its author

Originally published on [Mark Ku's Tech Notes](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/open-source-weekly/open-source-weekly-2026-09-26)

License: [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original

### About the author

**[Mark Ku](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku)** — 226 Network Co. · Software engineer

- 10+ years as a software engineer, now running 226 Network
- Built North-American e-commerce and AI SaaS subscription billing
- Systems, websites, LINE bots and AI automation for small companies

### Free tools built by the author

All of these are free to use:

- [Free PDF Sign Tool](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/pdf-sign): Online PDF sign tool — draw, type, or upload a signature, then drag, resize, and download. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
- [VS Code Refactory](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/refactory): Refactory is a VS Code refactoring extension: 34 actions plus a 37-rule code-smell inspection layer with a Code Health dashboard, across 18 languages, backed by 534 tests. It learns your repo's conventions: where interfaces live, where DI is registered, whether 'use client' belongs. It ranks files by git churn × complexity so you know what to fix first, and hands any smell to the Claude Code already on your machine. Free to use, and your source never leaves your computer.
- [DB-Kit Database Manager](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/db-kit): DB-Kit is a lightweight, cross-platform database manager built with Tauri + Rust + React. Manage MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Oracle, SQLite, MongoDB, Redis, Kafka, Elasticsearch and RabbitMQ from one consistent interface: passwords encrypted in the OS keychain, SSH tunnels, full CRUD, a visual query builder, stacked multi-statement result sets, cross-connection data transfer, schema & data compare with sync SQL and schema snapshots, Excel / CSV import & export, visualized execution plans, ER diagrams, scheduled backups, SQL stress testing with p50–p99 latency percentiles, a 15-rule SQL review engine, Review & Run (AI review plus per-statement backups and an auto-generated rollback script), Kafka message browsing with monitoring & alerts, a bilingual UI (Traditional Chinese / English), a built-in AI assistant (a local CLI or any Anthropic / OpenAI-compatible API; natural-language SQL, AI review and tuning advice) and the dbk CLI. Free and open source (MIT), with installers for Windows, macOS and Linux.
- [VS Code Super Mermaid](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/super-mermaid): Super Mermaid is a VS Code extension for beautiful Mermaid diagrams out of the box: auto-colored live preview, mouse pan & zoom, high-res PNG / SVG export, 21 templates and multiple themes. Free and open source (MIT).
- [React Super Mermaid](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/react-super-mermaid): react-super-mermaid is an open-source React component library: render beautiful Mermaid diagrams with a single <MermaidViewer>, with built-in colorful / sketch themes, pan & zoom, in-diagram search, and high-res SVG / PNG export. Lightweight, SSR-safe, fully typed. Free and open source (MIT).
- [Jira / Confluence Super Mermaid](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/jira-super-mermaid): An Atlassian Forge app: write Mermaid syntax directly inside a Jira issue or a Confluence page and get flowcharts, sequence diagrams, state machines and Gantt charts. 11 diagram types, SVG / PNG export, light and dark themes, full CJK support. Runs on Atlassian: your diagrams live in your own site and the app calls no third-party service. Free, coming soon to the Atlassian Marketplace.
- [Mermaid Live Preview](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/mermaid-preview): Write Mermaid in your browser, see it render instantly, and share the whole diagram as a single link. No sign-up, nothing uploaded to a server, and mermaid.live share links work as-is.
- [React Intl Phone Number](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/react-intl-phone-number): react-intl-phone-number is an open-source React component: framework-agnostic and antd-free, with E.164 in/out, a searchable flag / country-code dropdown, configurable validation levels (strict / mobile-strict / loose), themeable CSS, and i18n — phone logic powered by google-libphonenumber. Lightweight and fully typed. Free and open source (MIT).
- [Uptime Kuma Cluster](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/uptime-kuma-cluster): Turn single-node Uptime Kuma into a highly available cluster: OpenResty + Lua smart load balancing, shared MariaDB state, health checks and automatic failover, plus cluster-management REST APIs. One Docker Compose command to start. Free and open source (MIT).
- [AI Podcast Cut](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/ai-podcast-cut): Drop in a recording and it removes fillers and stutters, levels loudness segment by segment, and sends a second agent to review every cut. Cut points snap to word boundaries and zero crossings, every splice gets a fade, and sentence-end breaths are preserved. Desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux. MIT licensed; the Windows installer bundles ffmpeg.
- [open-pos restaurant POS](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/open-pos): One computer and one receipt printer is enough to open the shop. Your data lives on your own disk, no subscription, no lock-in, MIT licensed. Money is integer New Taiwan dollars with tax split by the statutory formula, so sales + tax always equals the total. Printing goes straight over ESC/POS on TCP 9100, with no vendor driver. Tauri + Rust + SQLite desktop app, v1.0 in development.

### Daily podcasts

- [Mark's Tech Insights — Daily AI News](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/category/tech-news): Daily curated AI and tech trends. Catch the latest developments via audio summaries — covering AI applications, software architecture, DevOps, and engineering practice. — RSS: https://blog.markkulab.net/feed.xml
- [AI股市蝦聊](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/category/ai-stock-chat): Every trading day, an AI-analyzed take on the Taiwan stock market, delivered as a two-host conversation covering the session and the next-day outlook. — RSS: https://blog.markkulab.net/ai-stock-chat/feed.xml
- [開源好物週報](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/category/open-source-weekly): A weekly two-host pick of free open-source tools surfaced from real Hacker News, GitHub, and Reddit buzz — what pain they solve and the fastest way to get started. — RSS: https://blog.markkulab.net/open-source-weekly/feed.xml
- [AI 運動週報](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/category/sports-weekly): Two hosts talk NBA, MLB and world sport three times a week — scores, records and the stories behind them, from a Taiwanese fan perspective. — RSS: https://blog.markkulab.net/sports-weekly/feed.xml
- [AI 國際新聞快報](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/category/world-news): A daily two-host briefing that makes sense of the past 24 hours in world news — geopolitics, the global economy, conflict and security, disasters and climate — from a Taiwanese perspective, neutral and fully sourced. — RSS: https://blog.markkulab.net/world-news/feed.xml
- [地端 AI 實驗室](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/category/local-ai-lab): Twice a week, a two-host look at open-weight models and LoRAs you can actually run on your own machine: what they are for, whether your GPU can handle them, and how they compare — sourced from official model cards. — RSS: https://blog.markkulab.net/local-ai-lab/feed.xml

### Deals

- [Saily eSIM](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/saily): Travel eSIM by the NordVPN team，Promo code：KUKU
- [NordVPN](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/nordvpn): The world's leading VPN, independently audited
- [PremLogin](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/premlogin): Subscription sharing for streaming and AI seats，Promo code：markku666

### Newsletter

[Subscribe to the newsletter](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/subscribe) — Be the first to know about new posts. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.