Why it's self-hosted

OpenBuddies runs on a computer in your home, not on our servers. There’s no account to sign up for and nothing kept in anyone else’s cloud. We think that’s the right way for a family to use AI with children:

• Your children’s chats are yours. They’re in one folder on your computer. Copy it and you’ve backed up everything.
• You hold the key. You use your own AI key, with your own spending limits.
• You can see how it works. It’s open source, so you, or a friend who codes, can check exactly what it does.

What leaves your home

Only these, and only to do their job:

flowchart LR
  box("<b>Your home</b><br/>OpenBuddies on<br/>your computer")
  box -- "AI calls, with your key" --> ai("Your AI provider")
  box -- "encrypted reminders" --> push("Push service, to<br/>your child's device")
  box -. "search words, if on" .-> search("Your search provider")
  box -. "picture requests, if on" .-> img("Your image provider")
  class search,img quiet

The dashed ones only happen if you turn them on.

• Calls to your AI provider (Anthropic, OpenAI or the one you chose), with your key.
• Reminder notifications to your child’s device, encrypted end to end, through the browser maker’s push service.
• Web searches, if you turn them on: the search words, with your child’s name and other details taken out, go to your search provider, and the chosen pages are read.
• Image requests, if you turn on Picture Studio, to your image provider.

Nothing else: no analytics, no tracking, no ads.