Convira vs Ollama

What Ollama is

Ollama is a free, open-source tool for running large language models locally. You pull a model with a single command and it serves that model on your own machine over a local API. It has become the closest thing the local-model world has to a common standard, which is why so much other software speaks its protocol.

What it deliberately is not is a finished application. Ollama has no document editor, no browser, no connected apps, no permission system and no notion of your files. It runs the model well and leaves everything built on top to you. That focus is the reason it is good at what it does.

What Convira does differently

Convira is the layer above, shipped as a product rather than as a toolkit. It opens the real .docx, .xlsx, .pptx and .pdf files where they already sit on your disk, writes them back in place, and preserves the parts you did not ask it to change.

It also carries the machinery that only starts to matter once software is allowed to touch your files. Code and subprocess execution run under operating-system-level isolation - a Bubblewrap namespace jail on Linux, a deny-by-default Seatbelt profile on macOS, and an AppContainer with a Job Object constraining the process tree on Windows. Every other action passes through permission gates and network controls. Sensitive actions pause for explicit approval instead of simply happening. An automatic local backup is taken before Convira's file and document tools modify or remove a file - terminal commands you approve can write without one - and restoring recovers a copy rather than overwriting anything. Every step stays visible while the run is in progress, and you can stop or redirect it.

The trade is real and worth stating plainly: Ollama is free and open source, and Convira is neither. Convira starts at $9 a month, there is no free tier and no free trial, and the app itself is closed source - only the OS confinement layer is published, under Apache 2.0 as convira-sandbox on GitHub. If either of those is a hard requirement, Ollama plus your own scripting is the honest recommendation.

Side by side

When Ollama is the better choice

• You want something free and open source and are happy to assemble the rest yourself.
• You are a developer who wants a local model endpoint to build against.
• What you actually want is to talk to a model, not to have work done on your files.
• You want full control over which models, quantizations and parameters you run.
• You are on hardware Convira does not support: an Intel Mac, ARM Linux, or Windows on ARM.

When Convira is the better choice

• What you want at the end is a finished file, not a conversation you then act on yourself.
• The work should happen to the documents already on your disk, in place, with everything you did not ask about left alone.
• You want a visible record of what changed and a backup you can restore from.
• You want an agent to stop and ask before it sends, posts or changes anything.
• You want the option to reach a bigger hosted model or a Private Box when a task outgrows your laptop, without switching tools.

Using both

This is the common case and it is not a compromise. Convira's Local runtime runs Ollama-compatible models on your machine: once models are downloaded it keeps working with no connection for up to 24 hours between the app's licensing check-ins, and a one-click Offline Mode toggle in the app footer blocks all outgoing traffic except your own machine's local services and Convira's sign-in and licensing endpoints, cutting off in-flight requests the moment you flip it.

So if you already keep models on your machine, Convira is the layer that puts them to work on your documents rather than a replacement for something you already trust. Two things still need the network: a billed online tool you deliberately invoke - web research, media generation, a connector action - which runs on managed provider keys we hold and is unavailable offline by design, and the app's own licensing check-in, a signed offline authority that lasts up to 24 hours between renewals.

Common questions

Convira facts on this page come from How it works, Security and Pricing, and are the same ones published there. If anything about Ollama is out of date or unfair, tell us at support@convira.ai and we will correct it.