Real lessons from starting an open-source app from zero

OpenLoomi is an open-source local-first AI agent that runs on a user’s own computer, and it reached hundreds of GitHub stars in about two months. Keeping sensitive data such as email on the user’s machine can make people more willing to trust the product. The tradeoff is that features that would be simple on a server must work quickly on each user’s device, which can greatly increase build time.

Connecting 26 outside services looks like a strong feature list, but much of the work is handling login and permission problems that differ from platform to platform. Features that act before the user asks can make a strong demo, but they can also become annoying if they interrupt too often, so the timing needs constant adjustment. A desktop app is harder to try than a hosted web demo because users must install it first.

Fewer people will test it, but the people who do install it are likely to be more serious. The privacy promise works especially well for people who like self-hosted tools or local AI models and would not connect their email to a cloud product.