Can I use a local AI model with a database for free?
Yes. Base by Zaweba, free software for Windows, connects to Ollama, LM Studio or llama.cpp, so its AI helper runs on your own PC and data stays put.
Local models work too. Base by Zaweba, which is free software, can connect to Ollama, LM Studio or llama.cpp running on your own PC. Its AI helper then writes queries, designs tables, suggests rules and makes sample data without anything leaving the computer, and you don't need an account with an online AI company.
What a local model is
Ollama, LM Studio and llama.cpp are free tools that run open AI models on your own hardware. You download a model once, and from then on the work happens on your machine. There's no subscription and nothing sent over the internet when you use it.
The trade-off is that a local model depends on your computer. A machine with plenty of memory and a decent graphics card will run larger, more capable models at a comfortable speed. A modest laptop can still run smaller ones, but they may be slower and make more mistakes than the large online services.
Connecting it to Base
Start your local tool and load a model. Then connect it in Base's AI settings, the same place you'd connect an online provider. Once connected, the AI menu and the Ask AI panel (Ctrl+Shift+A) become available.
What you can do with it
Ask about my data turns a plain English question into one SELECT query, which you can open as a query, run, or put into the query you're editing. Explain this query describes a query in plain words, and Fix this query takes the query and Base's error message and offers a correction.
Design a table turns a description into a table design that you preview before Base checks and creates it. Suggest rules proposes validation rules and input masks, each with a reason. Write a script drafts a button script following Base's scripting guide, and Make sample data invents ten records for the open table, added in one transaction.
All of these work the same whichever provider you use.
Checking the results
Smaller local models get things wrong more often, so the checks Base builds in are worth knowing. AI-suggested SQL goes through a guard: a single SELECT runs read-only, a single INSERT, UPDATE or DELETE needs a red confirmation, and anything else is refused. Changes are previewed and AI > Undo reverses them for the session. Base refuses rules that existing records already break.
It still pays to look at what comes back. Open a suggested query in the visual designer or on the SQL tab and make sure it says what you meant.
Why local suits some databases
Even with an online provider, Base sends only your database design by default, not your records. A local model goes further: nothing leaves the PC at all, not even the table names. For a charity's membership list, a clinic's appointments or anything else with personal data, that is a comfortable place to be. If you tick Include sample rows to give the model examples, those rows stay on the PC as well.
If you'd rather not use AI
None of this is required. The visual query builder, the table designer and the rest of Base by Zaweba work fully without any AI connected, and the AI menu simply stays greyed out.
