Stop Paying for Copilot: Run DeepSeek Coder Locally for Free (No Internet Needed)

Are you truly comfortable sending your private code to the cloud? Tools like ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot are undoubtedly powerful, but they come with a hidden cost: your data privacy. Every snippet you paste into a public AI model could potentially be used to train future versions, risking accidental leaks of proprietary algorithms or sensitive API keys.

In 2025, the biggest trend for developers is "Local AI"—running smart, capable models directly on your own hardware. It’s free, it’s private, and it works without an internet connection.

Run your own AI coding assistant locally. How to install Ollama and DeepSeek Coder on your PC to write Python & PHP code privately and for free

Enter DeepSeek Coder, an open-source model that has shocked the industry by rivaling GPT-4 in coding tasks while running 100% offline on your laptop.

What You Need (Hardware Requirements)

You don't need a $10,000 server to join the revolution. However, Local LLMs (Large Language Models) rely heavily on RAM and VRAM.

Minimum: A PC/Laptop with 8GB RAM (The model will run, but might be slow).
Recommended: 16GB RAM or more.
GPU: An NVIDIA RTX card helps significantly, but modern CPUs (Intel/AMD) or Mac M1/M2 chips handle it surprisingly well.

Step 1: Install Ollama (The "Docker" for AI)

In the past, running an AI model meant messing with Python environments, PyTorch dependencies, and complex configurations. Ollama changed the game. It simplifies everything into a single command-line tool, acting like a "Docker" for AI models.

Go to ollama.com and download the installer for your OS (Windows, Linux, or macOS). Once installed, it runs silently in the background, ready to serve models via a local API.

Step 2: Pull the DeepSeek Model

DeepSeek Coder comes in various sizes. For most laptops, the "6.7 billion parameter" (6.7b) version is the sweet spot between speed and intelligence. Open your command prompt (CMD, PowerShell, or Terminal) and run:

ollama run deepseek-coder

Ollama will automatically download the necessary files (approximately 4GB). This process uses quantization to compress the model without losing much intelligence, allowing it to fit into consumer hardware.

Step 3: Start Coding Offline

Once the download finishes, you will be dropped into a chat prompt. You can now ask complex programming questions. For example:

"Write a Python script using Selenium to scrape a table from a website and save it as a CSV file. Handle potential timeout errors."

The model will generate the code token-by-token right on your screen. The best part? You can pull your internet cable out, and it will still work perfectly.

Bonus: VS Code Integration (The Killer Feature)

Chatting in a terminal is cool, but having AI inside your editor is better. To replicate the GitHub Copilot experience:

Install the "Continue" extension from the VS Code Marketplace.
Open the extension settings and select Ollama as the provider.
Set the model to deepseek-coder.

Now, you can highlight code and press Ctrl+L to ask the AI to refactor, explain, or fix bugs—all processed locally on your machine. You have just built a free, private, and powerful coding assistant.