SurfSense

The air-gapped, open-source NotebookLM alternative.
The AI agent that researches, transforms and edits your documents, on your machine.

Download · Formats · Quick start · Compare · Plugins · Pricing · Discord

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https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/88326b9d-e763-46db-9635-75f9df9e8682

SurfSense is a free, open-source desktop app for documents you can't upload. A privacy-focused, NotebookLM-style AI agent that researches, transforms and edits your documents, on your machine. The index stays on your disk, you pick the model, local or remote, and there is no account.

Platform	Download
Windows x64	SurfSense-Setup.exe
macOS Apple Silicon	SurfSense-arm64.dmg
Linux x64	AppImage · deb

Note

Used the hosted web app? Export your workspaces before 18 October 2026 and import them here. See the sunset page.

Quick start

1. Install SurfSense and do the initial onboarding setup.
2. Drop your files or folders in your sources.
3. Ask the agent to search or extract or edit your files.

What it does with each format

Format	Research (cited answers)	Create	Edit (as a copy)	Transform
PDF	✓ scanned pages too³	✓	Fill and flatten forms; stamp watermarks, page numbers, headers, footers	Merge, split, extract, rotate, reorder pages
Word .docx	✓	✓ or from your own .docx as a template	✓ body text, as tracked changes and comments	To PDF¹
Excel .xlsx	✓ the agent also reads formulas	✓ with formulas and native charts	✓ cell values and formulas	Analyse with pandas, chart the results
PowerPoint .pptx	✓	✓ or from your own .pptx as a template	Replace text on slides and notes; delete or duplicate slides	To PDF¹
CSV	✓	—	—	Analyse with pandas, chart the results
Images PNG, JPEG, TIFF, BMP, WebP	✓ text read by OCR³	Images and infographics²	—	Place in new documents
Markdown, plain text	✓	✓ Markdown	—	—
HTML	✓	✓ web page	—	—
Recordings WAV, MP3, FLAC, Ogg Vorbis	✓ transcribed on your machine	—	—	—
Podcast (audio)	—	✓ with a transcript, voiced on your machine by default	—	—
Mind maps, flashcards, quizzes	—	✓ in the app	—	—

_{¹ With Office support (LibreOffice), turned on in Settings; it is never in the installer. ² Needs an image model, local or remote; none is chosen by default. ³ OCR reads Latin, Chinese and Japanese script.}

Edits, conversions and PDF tools always make a new file; your original is never changed. PDF, Word and Excel do the most today, and support for the other formats keeps improving.

Plugins

Connect them in Settings › Plugins.

By SurfSense. They read public pages without your own accounts and need a SurfSense license: download the app and enter your email there for a free 30-day one.

Plugin	What it does
Google Search	Search Google and read its results, ads and related questions
Web Crawl	Read a web page, or crawl a whole site into clean text
YouTube	Read YouTube videos, channels and their comments
TikTok	Read TikTok videos and their comments, search users, and see what is trending
Google Maps	Find places on Google Maps and read their reviews
Amazon	Read Amazon products and search results
Walmart	Read Walmart products, search results and reviews
Indeed	Read job listings on Indeed

Third-party. MCP servers from the plugin registry, such as DeepWiki and Notion, or any you add by URL. No license needed; they stay off until you allow them.

How it compares

	NotebookLM (now Gemini Notebook)	SurfSense
Runs offline / air-gapped	No	Yes
Your documents leave your machine	Yes	No, unless you pick a remote model
Can edit your files	No	Yes
Open source	No	Apache-2.0
Models	Gemini only	Any OpenAI-compatible API, or a local one

Community

• Discord for help, Issues for bugs, Discussions for ideas.
• Contributing: PRs go against dev; see CONTRIBUTING.md and surfsense_local/ for the dev loop. How it works is in docs/.

License

Apache-2.0. See LICENSE.