What Cherry Studio is
Cherry Studio is an open-source AI desktop client that brings multiple model providers and local models into a single desktop application. The community edition is released under the AGPL-3.0 license, and a privately deployable enterprise edition is offered separately. Development is open at GitHub (CherryHQ/cherry-studio); the official site is cherry-ai.com and the documentation lives at docs.cherry-ai.com.
Usage and boundaries
- Multi-provider access: per the official README, it supports major cloud providers such as OpenAI, Gemini and Anthropic, selected web AI services, and local models through Ollama and LM Studio; a single conversation can compare answers from several models side by side.
- Assistants and knowledge: over 300 preconfigured assistants, custom assistants, and processing for text, images, Office and PDF documents, plus topic management, WebDAV backup, AI translation, Mermaid diagrams and code highlighting.
- Tooling: support for MCP (Model Context Protocol) servers; setup is documented in the official documentation.
- Platforms: the official repository ships desktop builds for Windows, macOS and Linux; mobile apps (Android/iOS) are listed as planned items on the official roadmap, and published releases are on GitHub Releases.
Specific steps for MCP setup, model connections and backups follow the official documentation.
Discussion in the show
In the “Agent API：还需要自己维护一套 Harness 吗” (Agent APIs: do you still need to maintain your own harness?) chapter of Weekly #002, Guizang describes how client-style products have to adapt to multiple agent frameworks whose API formats differ, creating a lot of redundant work. Yang Pan then asks whether Cherry Studio is one of the products that already did this work; Guizang replies that many have, and continues with T3 Code as an example while discussing the adaptation cost of these “shell” products. This is a discussion of the participants’ own development experience, not a feature-by-feature confirmation of Cherry Studio. See the Chinese transcript; an English transcript is not available.
Frequently asked questions
What is Cherry Studio?
An open-source AI desktop client that puts multiple model providers and local models in one application, with assistants, document handling and MCP support. See the official site and the GitHub repository.
Which models does Cherry Studio support?
Per the official README: major cloud providers such as OpenAI, Gemini and Anthropic, selected web AI services, and local models via Ollama and LM Studio; one conversation can compare several models at once. The current provider list is in the official documentation.
Is Cherry Studio free?
The community edition is open source under AGPL-3.0 and free to use, provided the license terms are followed for commercial use; a separately licensed, privately deployable enterprise edition is also offered. Licensing details are in the repository.
Is there a mobile version of Cherry Studio?
The official README lists Android/iOS apps as roadmap items; released desktop builds cover Windows, macOS and Linux. Available versions are on GitHub Releases.
How do I configure MCP in Cherry Studio?
The official documentation covers MCP configuration. Because model and MCP connection details can change between versions, follow the current instructions at docs.cherry-ai.com.