Independent project. Not a U.S. government website.

USASI

Organization

Element Labs

Developer platform · New York, New York

Element Labs makes LM Studio, a desktop application for downloading and running language models on a local computer, with a chat interface and a local API server. It also publishes llmster, a headless version of LM Studio for servers, the lms command-line tool, and Python and TypeScript SDKs.1574Fact reviewed Oct 1, 2026

Last reviewedEntry updated

Using this organization’s offerings

Ownership, delivery, and openness answer different questions. Publicly traded does not mean open source; privately held does not mean closed.

Intended users

LM Studio is presented for running models on one's own computer; llmster and the SDKs are presented for developers building applications and services on a local or headless LM Studio instance.57Fact reviewed Oct 1, 2026

Hosted and self-hosted access

The desktop app is a free download licensed for personal and internal business use, with some paid features; llmster installs by script; the SDKs install from PyPI and npm.4378Fact reviewed Oct 1, 2026

Restrictions and review limits

The app terms treat the LM Studio software and its source code as trade secrets. The SDK announcement says applications built with the SDKs run on a computer where LM Studio is running. This profile is not a complete product or rights audit.39Fact reviewed Oct 1, 2026

Key facts

Legal name
Element Labs, Inc.23
Ownership (separate from openness)
Privately held

Recorded classification; fact-level ownership verification pending.

Legal form
Delaware corporation23
Headquarters
New York, New York13
Founded
Unknown
Sectors
Open models

What is and isn’t public

An evidence-based summary of what this catalog has documented. It is not a verdict on the organization as a whole.

The LM Studio desktop application is proprietary: its terms describe the software and its source code as trade secrets. Element Labs publishes the lms CLI, the Python and TypeScript SDKs, and mlx-engine under the MIT License on GitHub.311121315Fact reviewed Oct 1, 2026

Products

Documented products and how they are delivered. Each row links to the official page.

No hosted model products are recorded for this organization.

Other products

Element Labs: other products
ProductKindDocumented delivery and accessReviewed
LM Studio (external site: lmstudio.ai)Developer toolProprietary desktop app, free to download, for Apple Silicon Macs (macOS 14 or newer), Windows (x64 and ARM), and Linux (x64 and ARM64). It runs models locally with llama.cpp (GGUF) and, on Apple Silicon, MLX, and serves them through OpenAI-compatible endpoints. Its terms license it for personal and internal business use and say some features are paid.4563Oct 1, 2026
llmster and the lms CLI (external site: lmstudio.ai)Developer toolllmster is LM Studio's core packaged as a daemon for servers, cloud instances, and CI, installed with a shell or PowerShell script. The lms command-line tool, published under the MIT License, starts the daemon, downloads models, and runs the local server.7411Oct 1, 2026
LM Studio SDKs (lmstudio-python and lmstudio-js) (external site: lmstudio.ai)Developer toolMIT-licensed Python (pip install lmstudio) and TypeScript (npm @lmstudio/sdk) libraries for building applications that use a computer running LM Studio in the foreground or in headless mode.971213Oct 1, 2026

Cataloged artifacts

Records in the Open Models & Tools directory that list this organization as a maintainer or publisher.

No artifact records in this catalog list Element Labs. That is not evidence that none exist — only that none have been reviewed here.

Notable documented facts

  • LM Studio for Mac bundles mlx-engine, an MIT-licensed engine in the lmstudio-ai GitHub organization that runs text and vision models with Apple's MLX. Its README documents a standalone demo for macOS 14 or later with Python 3.11; the repository has no tagged releases.141516
  • LM Studio's privacy policy says that when models are downloaded and run locally, messages, chat histories, and documents are saved on the user's device and are not transmitted from it.2

Open positions

Automated job coverage is not configured for this organization.

What this catalog does not know

Unknown means the sources reviewed for this record do not document it. It is not evidence that something does not exist.
  • Founding date: not documented in the sources reviewed.
  • Open artifacts: none from this organization are in the catalog yet.

Have a primary source? How to report a correction.

U.S. eligibility

How this record meets the catalog’s published eligibility policy.

Eligible · basis: U.S. headquarters

LM Studio's careers page says LM Studio is built by Element Labs in New York, USA. The privacy policy identifies Element Labs, Inc. as a Delaware corporation with a registered address in Wilmington, Delaware, and the app terms choose New York law, with actions brought in New York County or federal court in New York. No foreign parent or headquarters was found.123

Assessed Oct 1, 2026

Eligibility policy

Sources

  1. 1.
    LM Studio careers (external site: lmstudio.ai)

    Element Labs · Official page · accessed Oct 1, 2026

  2. 2.
    LM Studio Privacy Policy (external site: lmstudio.ai)

    Element Labs · Official page · published Jun 2026 · accessed Oct 1, 2026

  3. 3.
    LM Studio App Terms of Service (external site: lmstudio.ai)

    Element Labs · Official page · published Aug 23, 2026 · accessed Oct 1, 2026

  4. 4.
    Download LM Studio (external site: lmstudio.ai)

    Element Labs · Official page · accessed Oct 1, 2026

  5. 5.
    LM Studio documentation (app) (external site: lmstudio.ai)

    Element Labs · Documentation · accessed Oct 1, 2026

  6. 6.
    LM Studio system requirements (external site: lmstudio.ai)

    Element Labs · Documentation · accessed Oct 1, 2026

  7. 7.
    LM Studio developer documentation (external site: lmstudio.ai)

    Element Labs · Documentation · accessed Oct 1, 2026

  8. 8.
    lmstudio-python documentation (external site: lmstudio.ai)

    Element Labs · Documentation · accessed Oct 1, 2026

  9. 9.
    Introducing lmstudio-python and lmstudio-js (external site: lmstudio.ai)

    Element Labs · Announcement · published Mar 3, 2025 · accessed Oct 1, 2026

  10. 10.
    LM Studio on GitHub (lmstudio-ai) (external site: github.com)

    Element Labs · Repository · accessed Oct 1, 2026

  11. 11.
  12. 12.
  13. 13.
  14. 14.
    lmstudio-ai/mlx-engine repository and README (external site: github.com)

    Element Labs · Repository · accessed Oct 1, 2026

  15. 15.
  16. 16.
    lmstudio-ai/mlx-engine tags (external site: github.com)

    Element Labs · Repository · accessed Oct 1, 2026

Support Us

Help keep USASI useful.

Optional. No USASI account required. Payment takes place on the linked provider’s website (Buy Me a Coffee).

About supporting this project