Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Which computer would be best suited for vibe coding Mac apps (with local LLM integration)?

  • Macbook Air M5 (32gb ram)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Macbook Pro with M5 Pro

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Mac Mini (or Mac Studio) with M4 Pro

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0

hehe299792458

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Im starting to use Claude Code to create some apps for myself. Im pretty new to vibe coding, so many breaking a lot of things. In particular, I want to separate it from my person system so in case it messes up, or crashes my OS, it doesn't impact my personal computer.

Right now, I have a MacBook Pro M2 Max with 96GB of RAM. What's the 2nd computer dedicated to vibe coding Mac apps I should buy? I'm considering between a M4 Pro Mac mini or even a Mac Studio (downside, it's going to be replaced soon). Or a 13 inch MacBook Air (very portable, but it's a notebook, not sure how I feel about running it 24/7 like a desktop, also limited to 32GB ram / M5 (no pro chip). Or an M5 MacBook Pro (14 inch). Upside: M5 chip like the air, even Pro variants. Downside: it's heavy and duplicative of my existing MacBook Pro

Any suggestions on what I should get? Im trying to write an app that uses the Gemma 4 LLM locally (using Claude Code to write it). Currently trying the E4B version, but may try others like Qwen too. So running the app does take a bit of memory. Curious which computer I should get for this?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.