Quick post about a change I made that’s worked out well.
I was using OpenAI API for automations in n8n — email summaries, content drafts, that kind of thing. Was spending ~$40/month.
Switched everything to Ollama running locally. The migration was pretty straightforward since n8n just hits an HTTP endpoint. Changed the URL from api.openai.com to localhost:11434 and updated the request format.
For most tasks (summarization, classification, drafting) the local models are good enough. Complex reasoning is worse but I don’t need that for automation workflows.
Hardware: i7 with 16GB RAM, running Llama 3 8B. Plenty fast for async tasks.
No, not free, OPs power bill just climbed behind the scenes to match. Probably a discount but definitely not free.
Unless OP is running a data center, then there’s not really much of a power increase to run a local Ollama.
Running a thousand watts and not running a thousand watts can be quiet a difference depending on where you live. And then consider buying all of the hardware. In many cases it’s probably cheaper to just pay $40 al month.
That would be true worst case, but you’re never running inference 24/7. It’s no crazier than gaming in that regard.