How we rank
This is an independent index of every on-device AI app we can find on the Mac App Store — 2,259 of them across 82 categories. We read each one, sort it into a tight set of alternatives, and rank the ones worth your attention on a single published rubric.
The four marks
Category leaders get a hand-written review and a score from 0–5 on each of four marks. The overall grade is a weighted blend — capability and craft carry the most, privacy and value round it out.
Capability
Does it actually do the job well? How broad and reliable the on-device AI is — the model range, accuracy, and how much real work it handles without falling back to the cloud.
Craft
Is it a well-made Mac app? Native feel, speed, polish, and how thoughtfully the AI is wired into a workflow you'd actually use every day.
Privacy
How much stays on your machine. A fully on-device app scores highest; hybrids that can phone out for some features score lower. Account requirements and telemetry count against it.
Value
What you get for the price. Free and one-time-purchase apps score well; honest, fair pricing matters more than being cheapest.
How the order is decided
Within a category, reviewed apps lead — ordered by their rubric grade, then by how many people use and rate them, with a nudge for genuinely novel tools so good newcomers aren't buried by incumbents.
The top three in each category get the Top pick / Runner-up / Also great treatment with a full scorecard. Everything else is listed below, ranked by the same signals. Apps we haven't hand-reviewed yet are still listed on their on-device merits and labeled as not-yet-reviewed.
Bunnysoft makes some of these apps. We rank them by the same rules.
This index is published by Bunnysoft, which also makes a family of private, on-device Mac apps. When one of ours appears, it earns its place on the rubric above — exactly like everything else — and carries a small made by Bunnysoft label so you always know.
We never pin our apps above a competitor that genuinely beats them. If a rival is better, it ranks higher — and ours sits at #2. That honesty is the whole point: a ranking you can only trust if it would read the same whether or not we made anything on the list.