Published May 29, 2026, 6:00 PM EDT Ayush Pande is a PC hardware and gaming writer. When he's not working on a new article, you can find him with his head stuck inside a PC or tinkering with a server operating system. Besides computing, his interests include spending hours in long RPGs, yelling at his friends in co-op games, and practicing guitar. Whether it’s Perplexity’s reliable and transparent nature or Claude Code’s programming capabilities, there’s no denying that cloud-based large language models can be a godsend for productivity. Most cloud LLMs ship with beginner-friendly UIs, and the fact that you don’t have to put in extra work just to get them up and running makes them pretty convenient for the average user. But I’ve spent the last couple of months moving away from cloud LLMs for my everyday tasks, partly since I don’t want external servers gaining access to my data, and also because I’d rather avoid the extra charges incurred by paid API usage.…