Install the desktop app

The desktop app gives you the full Libre Academy — every language runtime, the ingest pipeline that turns books into courses, and the local AI tutor.

Install

Grab the latest build from GitHub Releases. Pick the bundle for your OS:

macOS — .dmg (Apple Silicon + Intel universal)
Windows — .msi
Linux — .AppImage or .deb

First launch

Libre Academy unpacks the bundled starter packs into your data dir and opens the Library. Pick a course, start the first lesson, and the sidebar populates with the chapter tree.

What the desktop adds over the browser

PDF / EPUB ingest — drop any technical book in, get a Claude-structured course out
Docs-site crawler — point at a documentation URL, generate a course from the structure
Challenge pack generator — synthesize 20-200 exercises in any language with a slider for cost
Native toolchain runners — C, C++, Java, Kotlin, C#, Swift, Assembly all execute via subprocess shells
Local AI tutor — Ollama-backed; the floating fish character knows your lesson context and never sends a token to anyone else’s server

Optional cloud sync

Libre Academy offers a free, optional cloud sync to mirror your progress, XP, and streak across machines. It’s off by default — you opt in via Settings → Sign in. The sync server stores only the small JSON-shaped progress record; lesson contents stay on disk.

The desktop app is free and open source (MIT). There is no paid tier.