FAQ¶

Common questions about Lumen AI.

What is Lumen AI?¶

Open-source framework for exploring data with AI. Ask questions in plain English, get SQL queries, visualizations, and analysis automatically.

Why use Lumen instead of ChatGPT?¶

ChatGPT can't see your data or run queries. Lumen connects directly to your data, generates SQL, creates visualizations, and keeps history. Works with any LLM provider or local models.

Is Lumen free?¶

Yes, fully open source (BSD 3-Clause). Costs:

LLM API calls (OpenAI, Anthropic) - pay per token
Local LLMs - free after download
Hosting - only if deploying to cloud

Can I use Lumen offline?¶

Yes. Install with local LLM:

pip install 'lumen[ai-llama]'

See LLM Providers for setup.

Which LLM providers?¶

OpenAI (GPT-4o, GPT-4o-mini)
Anthropic (Claude 4-5 Sonnet, Haiku)
Google Gemini
Mistral AI
Azure OpenAI
Local models (Ollama, Llama.cpp)

Can I use my own LLM endpoint?¶

Yes:

llm = lmai.llm.OpenAI(
    api_key='...',
    endpoint='https://your-endpoint.com/v1'
)

Can I add authentication?¶

Yes. Lumen supports basic auth and OAuth through Panel. See Panel's authentication docs.