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LM Studio

Vannus records that this vendor routes across several model providers — not captured by one. Every finding below is quoted to the vendor’s own document, or marked not disclosed where the vendor publishes nothing.

Determination
Contracts with Element Labs, Inc. (United States) — within reach of US legal process.
lmstudio.ai · read 2026-09-15
read from terms of service
the entity’s country read from lmstudio.ai · read 2026-09-15

Desktop application for running open-source LLMs locally with a user-friendly interface — supports GGUF models with GPU acceleration

local-ai, llm-runtime, privacy
What the vendor's own documentation says
New & noteworthy local models you can run on your own computer
lmstudio.ai ↗ Vendor-sourced
Who controls it
US corporate controlYes — a US parent or US contracting entity is on the public record · clause re-checked 17 Sep 2026
Contracting entityElement Labs, Inc.
Governing lawthe laws of the State of New York, without reference to its choice of laws rules
Trains on your dataNo — on the vendor's default plan

Training and retention posture varies by plan. What we publish above describes the vendor’s default plan; enterprise, team and API agreements frequently differ, often materially, and a contract can override the published default entirely. Check your own plan and contract before relying on this row.

This is a separate question from the grade above. The grade measures resilience — whether the tool endures and whether you could leave it. This describes who controls the vendor. A tool can score modestly on one and strongly on the other, and many do.

On U.S. CLOUD Act reach specifically: the statute reaches a provider subject to U.S. jurisdiction over data in its possession, custody or control. Corporate control is a strong indicator of that and it is what we can evidence from published documents — but it is not the whole test. A company founded outside the U.S. can still contract through a U.S. entity or run substantial U.S. operations. Treat this as a starting point for your own review, not a legal determination, and take advice on anything that matters.

Signals on file
Zero data retention
Yes — states it retains no prompt data

The vendor's published or catalog-recorded posture — the concrete facts this grade is built from. A full audit verifies each against the vendor's current documentation.

How this grade is set

Vannus publishes a nine-dimension trust framework — data sovereignty, training privacy, compliance posture, operational resilience, exit portability, and more. The heaviest criterion asks whether the tool builds its own AI or resells someone else's model; where the vendor discloses it, the grade cites the vendor's own documentation. No paid placements — scoring is walled off from affiliate revenue. See the methodology →

Related tools we grade
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