Can I run AI coding tools locally for privacy?

Yes — tools like Continue.dev with Ollama, LM Studio, or llama.cpp let you run open-source models (CodeLlama, DeepSeek Coder, Qwen2.5-Coder) entirely on your machine. Quality is improving but still lags cloud models. You need a GPU with 8GB+ VRAM for responsive code completion. Best for companies with strict data policies — your code never leaves your network.