Open source alternatives to NotebookLM

3 projects on starwire do the same job. Ranked by how much of what NotebookLM does each one covers, read from its README and website. Ties go to the most active.

What NotebookLM does

  1. Chat with your own documentscore
  2. Answers with citations to sourcescore
  3. Summaries and study guides
  4. Audio overviews as podcasts
  5. Add PDFs, sites and videos as sources
  6. Notes and sharing

Each dot in the table is one job, in this order. Square dots are core jobs and count double. Full means yes, half means partly. "See the evidence" under a project shows the line behind each one. Coverage is what a project documents, not how well it works or how hard it is to move to. How we score this

ProjectCoversStarsCommits, 12 weeksLast releaseClosed vs openedSetupLicense
open-notebookSelf-hostable research notebook that chats with your sources, an open NotebookLM alternative Replaces it94%42k+204
268
 10 days ago100% Needs a server MIT
Covers all 2 core jobs. Partly: Notes and sharing.See the evidence
  • Chat with your own documentscoreYesChat with context
  • Answers with citations to sourcescoreYesAnswers cite the sources, notes and insights they used
  • Summaries and study guidesYesLeverage AI to summarize, generate insights, and manage your notes
  • Audio overviews as podcastsYesAdvanced multi-speaker podcast generation
  • Add PDFs, sites and videos as sourcesYesPDFs, videos, audio, web pages, and more
  • Notes and sharingPartlyLeverage AI to summarize, generate insights, and manage your notes
SurfSensePrivate NotebookLM alternative: an agent that researches and edits documents Replaces it88%17k+69
3,189
 11 days ago100% Needs a server Apache-2.0
Covers all 2 core jobs. Not shown: Notes and sharing.See the evidence
  • Chat with your own documentscoreYesAsk the agent to search or extract or edit your files
  • Answers with citations to sourcescoreYesResearch (cited answers)
  • Summaries and study guidesYesa report, a briefing or a study guide
  • Audio overviews as podcastsYesArtifacts: decks, reports, briefings, podcasts
  • Add PDFs, sites and videos as sourcesYesAdd sources from the web
  • Notes and sharingNot shownNeither the README nor the website mentions it.
podcastfyPython tool that turns documents into multilingual podcast audio Covers one part25%6.8k+20
0
 24 months ago0% For developers Apache-2.0
Covers 0 of 2 core jobs. Not shown: Chat with your own documents; Answers with citations to sources; Summaries and study guides; Notes and sharing.See the evidence
  • Chat with your own documentscoreNot shownNeither the README nor the website mentions it.
  • Answers with citations to sourcescoreNot shownNeither the README nor the website mentions it.
  • Summaries and study guidesNot shownNeither the README nor the website mentions it.
  • Audio overviews as podcastsYesalternative to NotebookLM's podcast feature
  • Add PDFs, sites and videos as sourcesYeswebsites, PDFs, images, YouTube videos
  • Notes and sharingNot shownNeither the README nor the website mentions it.

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