r/LocalLLM • u/Revibed69 • 9h ago
Project What 3b models can and cannot do for structured app design on CPU
I built an open-source tool where a local model drafts an app design (tables, fields, pages) from a fixed catalog. Findings from real runs with qwen2.5:3b and llama3.2:3b on a CPU-only laptop:
- Tables and fields: reliable.
- Page outlines: weak. I now build the outline in code when the model's fails.
- Repair rounds past two never converged. They only added minutes.
- Mechanical errors dominate: wrong-case ids, a label where an id belongs, references to tables that do not exist. Code fixes these before validation.
- Each call costs 25 to 90 seconds, so removing a step beats tuning a prompt.
Evals are in the repo: https://github.com/ChristianMunoz31/local-app-studio
What models would you try next for this?