On October 20, Perplexity Computer gained a fully local mode: the model and the agent both run on an Apple silicon Mac, for Pro, Max and Enterprise subscribers, with 36GB or more memory recommended. Files and reasoning stay on the Mac, but live information, the browser and sending mail still go online.
No budget needed: Tailscale plus built-in Screen Sharing is free and the most reliable stack for daily remote work on Mac — upgrade to Jump Desktop only if you want it smoother. This guide compares four options and fixes lid-close and sleep pitfalls in 5 minutes.
Node is the required runtime because the canonical state store uses node:sqlite — Bun is only for installing dependencies. Windows changed the most: there is now a native Windows Hub companion app that installs without administrator privileges and can provision its own app-owned WSL distro for the Gateway.
Ghostty is a fast, native, general-purpose terminal emulator. cmux is a terminal built on top of Ghostty, specifically designed for AI coding agents. They're not competitors — they operate at different layers.