PIES Studio Hobby

Hobby is the free plan: the complete PIES Studio editor, running on your own machine. No account, no sign-up, no telemetry. Download it from pies.io/download and start building.

It is not a trial and it does not expire. Editing, building and previewing are free permanently.

What you get

The whole editor. Not a cut-down version — the same application it ships in every plan. The canvas, the explorer, the data model, events and functions, screen design, the build console and the local preview all behave exactly as the user manual describes.

Unlimited applications and unlimited builds. Nothing counts how many you make.

PIES AI, on a model you choose. Under AI model & providers you either connect your own OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI or Azure key, or point Hobby at a model running on your own machine. That choice decides where your prompts go: a local model keeps everything on your device, a provider key sends prompts to that provider under your own account and their terms. Governed auto-routing — having PIES choose the model per request by classification, role and region — needs a connected server.

A real database and a real build. Hobby carries its own stack — database, back end and the build toolchain — so a machine that has never been online can create an application, build it and run it with real data behind it.

Air-gapped if you want it. There is no account and nothing phones home, so Hobby runs on machines that cannot reach the internet at all — provided you use a local model rather than a provider key.

What it looks like

Hobby opens on the launcher rather than straight into an editor. The version pill reads HOBBY, and the line beneath it says you are working offline and under what local identity. Connect to a server is the one link that changes that.

The PIES Studio launcher on the Hobby plan

Your applications are listed here, each marked LOCAL ONLY — they live on this machine and nowhere else. Below them sit AI model & providers, where you choose what PIES AI runs on, and Advanced settings.

The strip at the bottom states the plan plainly: editing, building and local preview are free, always. See what PIES Cloud adds opens the full list.

Inside the editor nothing is missing — the canvas, the explorer, the data model, the build console and PIES AI are all there.

The locked features are visible rather than hidden. The status bar shows the stack it will build on — MySQL, Go, React — with a lock on each, and the mobile toggle reads mobile off.

The locked stack pills in the status bar

You can see what you are not using, which is the point: nothing is disguised as absent, and clicking a lock explains what unlocks it.

What is locked, and why

Everything Hobby cannot do is something that needs a server somewhere. The editor shows these with a lock rather than hiding them, so you can see what exists.

Locked on Hobby	What it needs
Hosting and deployment	Somewhere for the application to run once it leaves your machine.
Choosing your language and stack — PostgreSQL or MySQL; Go, Python, Java or Node; React or Angular	Hobby always builds on the default stack.
iOS and Android publishing	A build and signing pipeline outside your machine.
Teams, boards and releases	Shared state between people.
Auto-save, cloud storage and backup	Storage that is not your local disk.
Full AI governance — routing by data classification, role and region, audit trail, org knowledge base	An organisation to govern, and a server to enforce it.

Nothing you build on Hobby is held back by those locks. The application definition is the same one a paid plan uses; connecting later unlocks these features against work you already did offline.

Moving to a paid plan

There is no export, migration or conversion step. The IDE is the same download in every plan — you sign it in, and what was locked becomes available.

Individual and Teams connect the editor to a PIES-operated server. You get hosting, storage and backup, stack choice, mobile publishing, and — on Teams — boards, shared source control, roles and single sign-on.

Enterprise connects the editor to a server your organisation installs and controls: your infrastructure, your database, your identity provider, your audit trail. This is also the only plan where the AI engine can run inside your own network, so no prompt and no application content ever crosses your boundary. See the installation guide and the PIES Private AI manual.

For current plans and pricing, see pies.io.

Common questions

Does Hobby expire, or watermark what I build? No. It is free permanently and adds nothing to your application.

Can I use it commercially? Nothing in the software restricts it. Check the licence terms for the current position.

Is my work locked in? No. PIES Studio generates ordinary source code — an application you built on Hobby is a real codebase, not a proprietary artefact that only runs here.

Do I need a GPU for the AI? Not for the editor. Running a large model locally is demanding, so you can point Hobby at a smaller local model or supply your own API key instead. The Private AI manual covers the hardware the largest models need.

Will my applications still work if I stop paying? Applications already deployed keep running — they are ordinary applications on your own infrastructure. The editor reverts to Hobby: you keep editing, building and previewing locally, and the server-backed features lock again.