MLX Swift
Apple's Swift bindings for MLX. The native iOS / iPadOS path for on-device LLM inference. Apple-published example apps such as LLMEval download an LLM from Hugging Face and run it on iOS and macOS. LLM implementations now live in mlx-swift-lm.
Overview
Apple's Swift bindings for MLX. The native iOS / iPadOS path for on-device LLM inference. Apple-published example apps such as LLMEval download an LLM from Hugging Face and run it on iOS and macOS. LLM implementations now live in mlx-swift-lm.
Featured in this stack
The L3 execution stacks that pick this tool as a recommended component, with the one-line note explaining the role it plays in each.
- Stack · L3·Homelab tier·Role: On-device runtime (Apple-first-party Swift API)iPhone on-device AI stack — Llama 3.2 3B / Phi-3.5 Mini via MLX Swift
MLX Swift is Apple's first-party path. Same model checkpoints as desktop MLX-LM (write once, run on Mac + iPhone + iPad). Active Apple maintenance — updated alongside iOS releases. iOS-only is the catch.
Pros
- Apple first-party: Swift API for MLX on iOS and macOS
- Shares model checkpoints with desktop MLX — write once, run on Mac + iPhone
- Active Apple maintenance — updated alongside macOS/iOS releases
Cons
- Apple platforms plus a Linux build; no Android or Windows path documented
- Smaller community than MLC LLM
- Requires Swift / Xcode toolchain (not Python-friendly)
Compatibility
| Operating systems | iOS macOS iPadOS Linux |
| GPU backends | Apple |
| License | Open source · free + open-source |
Runtime health
Operator-grade signals on how actively MLX Swift is being maintained, how fresh its measurements are, and what failure classes operators have flagged. Every label below is anchored to a real date or count — we never infer maintainer activity we can't show.
Release cadence
Derived from the most recent editorial signal on this row.
2 days since last refresh · source: lastUpdated
Benchmark freshness
How recent the editorial measurements on this runtime are.
No editorial benchmarks for this runtime yet.
Community reproduction
Submissions that match an editorial measurement on similar hardware.
No community reproductions on file yet.
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Frequently asked
Is MLX Swift free?
What operating systems does MLX Swift support?
Which GPUs work with MLX Swift?
Reviewed by RunLocalAI Editorial. See our editorial policy for how we evaluate tools.
Related — keep moving
Verify MLX Swift runs on your specific hardware before committing money.