> The ability to add context via a local apps integration into OS level resources is big

Good point. I can see why integrated support for local filesystem tools would be useful, even though I prefer manually uploading specific files to avoid polluting the context with irrelevant info.

> Its own icon that I can CMD-TAB to is so much nicer

Fair enough. I personally prefer Firefox's tab organization to my OS's window organization, but I can see how separating the LLM into its own window would be helpful.

> having access to my chats for context has been repeatedly valuable to me.

I didn't at all consider this. Point ceded.

> I haven't looked at provider-agnostic apps and, TBH, would be wary of them.

Interesting. Why? Is it security? The ones I've listed are open source and auditable. I'm confident that they won't steal my API keys. Msty has a lot of advanced functionality that I haven't seen in other interfaces like allowing you to compare responses between different LLMs, export the entire conversation to Markdown, and edit the LLM's response to manage context. It also sidesteps the problem of '[provider] doesn't have a desktop app' because you can use any provider API.

> Good point. I can see why integrated support for local filesystem tools would be useful, even though I prefer manually uploading specific files to avoid polluting the context with irrelevant info.

Access to OS level resources != context pollution. You still have control, just more direct and less manual.

> The ones I've listed are open source and auditable.

Yeah I don't plan on spending who knows how much time auditing some major app's code (lol) before giving it my API keys and access to my chats. Unless there's a critical mass of people I know and trust using something like that it's not going to happen for me.

But also, I tried quickly looking up Msty to see if it is open source and what its adoption looked like and AFAICT it's not open source. Asked Gemini 3 if it was and it also said no. Frankly that makes it a very hard no for me. If you are using it because you think it's Open Source I suggest you stop.