SurfSense is an air-gapped, open-source NotebookLM alternative — an AI research app that indexes docs locally and generates reports, slides and podcasts.
Yes, SurfSense is open source under the Apache-2.0 license.
SurfSense is free to use.
Yes, SurfSense can be self-hosted (the source is available under the Apache-2.0 license).
SurfSense is an air-gapped, open-source (Apache-2.0) NotebookLM alternative: an AI research app that parses, indexes and embeds your documents entirely on your own machine (local SQLite, no telemetry), then generates summaries, reports, slides, podcasts and study guides. SurfSense AI runs on local models or any OpenAI-compatible API, and ships an MCP server for connecting external sources.