One chat window for Claude, GPT, and your laptop

What it does

Zola gives you a clean, theme-aware chat interface that talks to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, or your own Ollama instance. It is built on Next.js and designed to be self-hosted, with Supabase handling auth and storage if you want full features like file uploads and user accounts.

The interesting bit

Instead of locking you into one provider’s playground, Zola treats models as interchangeable endpoints. It auto-detects local Ollama models and accepts your own API keys or OpenRouter credentials, letting you bounce between cloud and local inference without switching apps.

Key highlights

• Supports OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Mistral, and local Ollama models with automatic detection
• Bring-your-own-key routing through OpenRouter or direct provider credentials
• File uploads, custom system prompts, and multiple layout options
• Built with shadcn/ui, Tailwind CSS, prompt-kit, and the Vercel AI SDK
• Apache 2.0 license and Vercel-ready, though auth and storage require extra Supabase configuration

Caveats

• Full MCP support is marked work-in-progress
• The project is explicitly beta, and the codebase is still evolving
• Features like authentication and file uploads need additional setup beyond the basic deployment

Verdict

Good for developers who want a private, vendor-neutral chat UI they can skin and extend. Skip it if you need a polished, zero-config consumer app or mature MCP integrations today.