About Dietrich AI Labs

Dietrich AI Labs is an independent software lab building practical desktop applications, local-first AI tools, privacy-conscious software, and the technologies that connect them. What began with focused utilities has grown into a broader software portfolio that includes RangeScout, LeanDesk Suite, PDF Shrinker, Sensitive File Scanner, Release Butler, Template Builder, and our flagship project, Nyx.

We build software around a fairly simple belief: the computer in front of you should remain useful, capable, and yours.

Why we build

A growing amount of modern software assumes that every task belongs in the cloud, every user needs an account, and every useful feature eventually needs a subscription. We prefer a different approach.

Where practical, Dietrich AI Labs software is designed to work locally, keep important data under the user's control, and clearly explain when a feature requires an internet connection or an external provider.

Local-first does not mean pretending the internet does not exist. It means using it deliberately instead of making it the default requirement for everything.

Our applications are provided as freeware. People should be able to download our software, use it, and decide whether it is useful without another recurring bill.

How we work

We treat even small utilities as real software products.

Projects are developed modularly and move through structured engineering, testing, security and privacy, compliance, packaging, and release work. Corrections are tested again rather than assumed to be safe simply because one problem was fixed.

That process sometimes makes development slower. It also catches an impressive number of things that looked completely fine five minutes earlier. We have learned to respect both realities.

Where this is heading

Nyx has become the center of our long-term direction.

Nyx → Nyx Browser → Nyx OS

Current platform → In development → Long-term development

Nyx is our local-first AI desktop platform.

Nyx Browser is being developed as a privacy-first browser designed around visible user control, separated browsing modes, permissions, customization, and strong security foundations.

Nyx OS is the much longer-term vision: a Lubuntu/LXQt-based computing environment where local AI, first-party applications, privacy controls, system tools, and the broader Nyx ecosystem can eventually work together much more deeply. Nyx OS has no announced release date and is not an installable product.

Independent by design

Dietrich AI Labs is not interested in manufacturing the image of a giant software corporation. We would rather build useful software, document what it actually does, be clear about what it does not do, and improve it when users find something we missed.

If something is experimental, we want to call it experimental. If something is still in development, we want to say so. And if we break something, we would rather fix it than pretend it was a feature.