Open Notebook: self-hosted, multi-model NotebookLM alternative trending again
Open-source research notebook that turns documents, web pages, audio and video into searchable notebooks with chat, notes and multi-speaker podcasts, runnable fully self-hosted with 20+ model providers including local Ollama, past 40,000 stars.
Why it matters
It matches NotebookLM's shape while keeping data on your own machine and letting you pick any model, including a fully local one, instead of being locked to one vendor's cloud.
What you could build with it
A research team could self-host this on an internal server, load a folder of contracts or papers, and let analysts query them through one notebook with a local model, producing cited summaries without sending documents to a third-party cloud.
Does it hold up?
Usable now via Docker with a setup of a few minutes and 20+ model providers; uploads cap at 100 MB by default and source refresh is manual, so it suits static research collections better than fast-changing document sets.
Built with Open Notebook
- Open Notebook: The Open Source Alternative to NotebookLMarticle · Profile noting v1.15.0, 40.7k stars, Docker deployment and MIT licensing, with a cost comparison against NotebookLM.
- Open Notebook: Private, Self-Hosted Gemini Notebook (NotebookLM) Alternativearticle · Install walkthrough covering Docker setup and connections to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Ollama and LM Studio.
- NotebookLM Alternatives: 3 That Stay Currentarticle · Comparison of three NotebookLM alternatives on document freshness, picking Open Notebook for self-hosted use with any model.
Learn more
First spotted on github: source.
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