Running local LLMs is all the rage these days in the self-hosting circles. And if you’ve been intrigued, or have dabbled in it, you’d have heard of Koboldcpp and LM Studio both. While I’d previously dabbled in LM Studio, I recently discovered Koboldcpp and decided to give it a whirl to see if there are any notable differences. Turns out, despite running the same LLM, the two apps use fundamentally different approaches that give their own unique strengths. Specifically, if you are someone who cares about narrative workflow, like storytelling or even role playing, Koboldcpp stands out in a few ways over LM Studio. Here’s what I discovered.