SurfSense

SurfSense is an open source, private research notebook positioned as an alternative to NotebookLM. It runs as a desktop application on Windows, macOS and Linux and keeps the index of a user's documents as a file on their own disk, so it can answer questions about added sources even without a network connection. Users choose the model. It works with a local model such as Qwen or Llama through Ollama, which ships with the installer, or with keys for OpenAI, Anthropic and other OpenAI compatible providers. No account or sign up is required and no Docker setup is needed. Indexed sources can be turned into deliverables including slide decks, written reports, briefing podcasts, infographics, study guides, flashcards and practice quizzes, all generated and stored in the same local database. The vendor also describes a plugin system for scrapers covering nine platforms and a web crawler, with the first plugin, a hosted scraper API, not yet shipped in version 2.0. It is aimed at people handling sensitive material such as case files or client records who want everything to stay on their machine. The app and its updates are free, and the source is public so it can also be built independently. An Individual licence for the scraper plugins and priority support costs $60 for the first year, then $120 per year. Enterprise pricing is custom and annual, covering deployment inside a customer network, audit logs and named support.