Shared model registry to allow model sharing with Ollama and other apps

[tleyden]

I just posted this to r/localllama asking if anyone knows of a library to support a shared model registry: https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLM/comments/1pygyhi/local_model_registry_to_solve_duplicate_ggufs/

I'm running into storage issues with multiple local LLM apps. I downloaded Olmo3-7B through Ollama, then wanted to try Jan.ai's UI and had to download the same 4GB model again. Now multiply this across Dayflow, Monologue, Whispering, and whatever other local AI tools I'm testing.

Each app manages its own model directory. No sharing between them. So you end up with duplicate GGUFs eating disk space.

Feels like this should be solvable with a shared model registry - something like how package managers work. Download the model once, apps reference it from a common location. Would need buy-in from Ollama, LMStudio, Jan, LibreChat, etc. to adopt a standard, but seems doable if framed as an open spec.

I'm guessing the OS vendors will eventually bake something like this in, but that's years away. Could a community-driven library work in the meantime? Or does something like this already exist and I'm just not aware of it?

Curious if anyone else is hitting this problem or if there's already work happening on standardizing local model storage.

Related jan.ai threads:

1. https://github.com/orgs/janhq/discussions/3622
2. https://github.com/orgs/janhq/discussions/2554