Yes! Cactus is optimized for mobile CPU inference and we're finishing internal testing of hybrid kernels that use the NPU, as well other chips.
We don't advise using GPUs on smartphones, since they're very energy-inefficient. Mobile GPU inference is actually the main driver behind the stereotype that "mobile inference drains your battery and heats up your phone".
Wrt to your last question – the short answer is yes, we'll have multimodal support. We currently support voice transcription and image understanding. We'll be expanding these capabilities to add more models, voice synthesis, and much more.
indeed, this is exactly the goal! The license grants rights to commercial use, unlocks additional hardware acceleration, includes cloud telemetry, and offers significant savings over using cloud APIs.
In our deployments, we've seen open source models rival and even outperform lower-tier cloud counterparts. Happy to share some benchmarks if you like.
Our pricing is on a per-monthly-active-device basis, regardless of utilization. For voice-agent workflows, you typically hit savings as soon as you process over ≈2min of daily inference.
thank you! Very kind feedback, and we'll add your feedback to our to-dos.
re: "question would get stuck on the last phrase and keep repeating it without end." - that's a limitation of the model i'm afraid. Smaller models tend to do that sometimes.
thank you! We're continue to add performance metrics as more data comes in.
A Qwen 2.5 500M will get you to ≈45tok/sec on an iPhone 13. Inference speeds are somewhat linearly inversely proportional to model sizes.
Yes, speeds are consistent across frameworks, although (and don't quote me on this), I believe React Native is slightly slower because it interfaces with the C++ engine through a set of bridges.
Great question. Currently, each app is sandboxed - so each model file is downloaded inside each app's sandbox. We're working on enabling file sharing across multiple apps so you don't have to redownload the model.
With respect to the inference SDK, yes you'll need to install the (react native/flutter) framework inside each app you're building.
The SDK is very lightweight (our own iOS app is <30MB which includes the inference SDK and a ton of other stuff)
- "You are, undoubtedly, the worst pirate i have ever heard of"
- "Ah, but you have heard of me"
Yes, we are indeed a young project. Not two weeks, but a couple of months. Welcome to AI, most projects are young :)
Yes, we are wrapping llama.cpp. For now. Ollama too began wrapping llama.cpp. That is the mission of open-source software - to enable the community to build on each others' progress.
We're enabling the first cross-platform in-app inference experience for GGUF models and we're soon shipping our own inference kernels fully optimized for mobile to speed up the performance. Stay tuned.
We don't advise using GPUs on smartphones, since they're very energy-inefficient. Mobile GPU inference is actually the main driver behind the stereotype that "mobile inference drains your battery and heats up your phone".
Wrt to your last question – the short answer is yes, we'll have multimodal support. We currently support voice transcription and image understanding. We'll be expanding these capabilities to add more models, voice synthesis, and much more.