Editions

Full vs Lite

Pick Full, Lite, or both. They share the same local-first chat — Auto / Manual / Judge, Intelligence, Learning, Voice, Email, custom skills, and local guardrails — and keep separate Application Support folders so they can run on the same Mac.

What both editions do

Apple Silicon · macOS 14+ · OpenRouter for text modes · OpenAI Realtime for Voice
Local guardrails (Preferences → Subscription), on-device before send: Sensitive Info redacts cards, SSN-like patterns, and confidentiality phrases; Prompt Injection blocks jailbreak-style prompts
Intelligence before send, Prefer / Learning, budget caps, Incognito, Projects
Skills: @Document, @Email, and user-defined instruction snippets
SMTP send with confirm-first drafts (Bcc, HTML, attachments, local sent log)
Scheduled prompts while the app is open
Distinct Dock icons and menu-bar marks (Lite draws an L)

Compare

	Full	Lite
Positioning	Fully featured — local tools and a Solo gateway	Lighter runtime — OpenRouter from Swift, App Sandbox on
Local guardrails	Sensitive Info (redact) and Prompt Injection (block)	Same — Sensitive Info (redact) and Prompt Injection (block)
Isolation	Unsandboxed. Shell and scanners can affect this Mac and the network; you own the commands and targets.	App Sandbox. No local OS Access and no MCP tools.
External tools	MCP (Nmap, Semgrep, SSLyze) and `@OS` (confirm-first)	None
Distribution	Notarized DMG from aril.host / GitHub	Mac App Store
Local gateway	Solo FastAPI on 127.0.0.1:8741	None — Swift talks to OpenRouter
Learning store	SQLite via the gateway	JSON file in Application Support
Prompt cache UI	Gateway hit / eligible / tokens short	Shown as n/a (no gateway cache)
Background schedules	LaunchAgent + missed-run notifications	Only while Lite is open

Full

The notarized DMG is the fully featured edition: Solo gateway, managed MCP scanners (Nmap, Semgrep, SSLyze), @OS shell, and LaunchAgent schedules that can wake ARIL after you quit. It is more functional because those tools run on this Mac. There is no App Sandbox, so a command or scan can affect the machine and the network — only test hosts you own or are authorized to test. Voice still never auto-starts Live. Email and OS Access stay confirm-first.

Download ARIL for Mac

Lite

The Mac App Store edition talks to OpenRouter directly — no local gateway process — so the runtime stays lighter. App Sandbox is on, which removes local OS Access and external MCP tools. Chat, Intelligence, Voice, Email, custom skills, and the same Sensitive Info / Prompt Injection guardrails remain. Sessions, SMTP, and schedules live in the Lite folder so they never mix with Full. Keep both apps installed if you want sandboxed chats some days and Full tools on others.