Camel Chat is a feature-rich Flutter application designed to provide a seamless interface for communicating with large language models (LLMs) served via an Ollama server. It offers a user-friendly way to interact with open-source AI models on your own hardware.

Features

Connect to Ollama Servers: Easily connect to any Ollama server with optional basic HTTP authentication.
Multiple Model Support: Chat with any model available on your Ollama server.
Complete Chat History: View and manage your conversation history.
Dark Mode Support: Switch between light and dark themes for comfortable viewing.
Custom System Prompts: Define system prompts to set the AI's behaviour and context.
Export Conversations: Export your chats as markdown files for sharing or archiving.
Chat Organisation: Auto-generated meaningful titles for your conversations.
Responsive UI: Works seamlessly on both mobile and desktop devices.
Code Formatting: Proper rendering and formatting of code blocks in responses.
Local Storage: All your conversations are stored locally for privacy.

Getting Started

Prerequisites

A running Ollama server (local or remote).

Installation

Android

Download and install the APK from the releases page.

Linux

Choose one of the following packages from the releases page:

Debian/Ubuntu: Download and install the .deb package.
Fedora/RHEL: Download and install the .rpm package.
Arch: Download and install .zst package.
Other distributions: Download the AppImage, make it executable and run it.

Setting Up Your Ollama Server

Install Ollama from https://ollama.com/.
Pull the models you want to use (e.g., ollama pull gemma3).
Run the Ollama server.
Connect Camel Chat to your server by entering the URL (e.g., http://localhost:11434/).

Roadmap

Here are some features and improvements planned for future releases:

Stream Responses: Implement streaming responses for more interactive conversations.
File Attachments: Upload and process files during conversations.
Chat Statistics: View usage statistics and performance metrics.
Release on Flathub
Windows & macOS Support

top 7 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] piefood@piefed.social 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How does this compare to something like openwebui https://docs.openwebui.com/ ?

[–] nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 2 days ago

My app is nothing compared to the features Open WebUI. I just wanted to make a simple native app. Honestly, I made this just because I wanted to see if I can make something like that.

Also, Open WebUI is slightly complex for someone who is not into self-hosting. My app is for someone who just installs Ollama on their laptop or any computer and has exposed it to on the local network.

[–] smee@poeng.link 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Looks interesting but can't get it to run on Debian 12, neither the .deb nor the appimage.

[–] nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

That's odd. I did test it on Mint.

Can you run it via a terminal and tell me if it shows any errors?

[–] smee@poeng.link 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

.deb

$ /opt/camelchat/camelchat

opt/camelchat/camelchat: symbol lookup error: /opt/camelchat/camelchat: undefined symbol: g_once_init_enter_pointer

Appimage

Set as executable.

$ ./Camel-Chat-0.2.0-x86_64.AppImage

tmp/.mount_Camel-7OCAAq/camelchat: symbol lookup error: /tmp/.mount_Camel-7OCAAq/camelchat: undefined symbol: g_once_init_enter_pointer

From a similar issue for a different app it seems to be a glib issue, requiring glib 2.8+ when Debian12 is shipped with 2.74.6-2+deb12u5.

Android

Works perfectly!

[–] nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 6 hours ago

Thanks! I will definitely look into it.

[–] smee@poeng.link 2 points 2 days ago

I did run the app image in terminal and got an error about missing something, and the app image comes with everything bundled right? Might be an issue on my end I suppose.

I'll redo it and paste the error message tomorrow.