AI Note-Taking Apps and Knowledge Bases

PenEcho is an open-source workspace that puts handwritten notes, diagrams and AI-generated widgets on an infinite canvas. It runs on your computer as a macOS or Windows app, or through Node.js with a browser interface. It's for people who want to work through technical ideas visually and give AI feedback by drawing directly on the result.

Karakeep is a bookmark manager for people who collect links, notes, images and PDFs in one place. You can run the open source app on your own server with Docker under the AGPL-3.0 license, or use the managed Karakeep Cloud service. It has a web app, iOS and Android apps, and extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Safari.

SurfSense is an open-source NotebookLM alternative that turns documents into cited answers and editable deliverables on your computer. It's a desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux, aimed at people working with confidential files, research or study material. You don't need an account.

Open Notebook is a self-hosted alternative to Google's NotebookLM for researchers, students, and professionals who want AI help with their own research materials. It runs locally or on your server through Docker and is open source under the MIT license. You choose which content the AI can access and which provider processes it.

AFFiNE is a local-first knowledge workspace for individuals and teams who want documents and visual planning in the same place. It combines a block editor, an edgeless whiteboard and databases, making it an alternative to Notion and Miro for team wikis, project plans and connected notes.

SiYuan is a local-first, self-hosted knowledge workspace for people who want linked notes, research material and AI writing tools in one place. Its block references let you connect individual passages rather than whole documents, with bidirectional links to follow those connections. It's open source under AGPL-3.0.

ScribeDog is a Markdown editor for writers and note-takers who want AI assistance while keeping their documents on their own hardware. It displays formatted text, tables and images instead of Markdown syntax, but saves ordinary .md files that work with Git and other editors. It has a native desktop app and a self-hosted Server Edition available through Docker.

OpenWhispr is a free, MIT-licensed dictation and meeting transcription app for people who want voice input across their apps with control over where processing happens. It's available on macOS, Windows, Linux and iOS. Local transcription works offline and keeps audio on your device; optional cloud transcription sends audio to the selected provider, whose retention policies apply.

Perfect Memory AI keeps a searchable record of what you've seen on your screen and heard in meetings on Mac and Windows. It's for people who need to find a page, presentation or conversation again without remembering which app held it. Recordings stay on your device, and search returns material you've actually seen or heard.

Reor is a local AI note-taking app for people who want to search their own writing, find connections between ideas and ask questions about their notes. The project is archived and no longer maintained. It runs on macOS, Windows and Linux, and it's open source under AGPL-3.0.

QAnything is a self-hosted knowledge base for people and teams who want to ask questions about their own documents, including collections that mix Chinese and English. It can answer in either language regardless of the document's language, and runs locally through Docker on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Writeopia is a writing and note-taking app for people who want AI assistance while keeping their documents on their own computer. It runs on Windows, Linux and macOS, with offline access to locally stored notes and a choice of AI models that run on your device. It's aimed at writers, developers and researchers working on drafts, documentation or personal notes.

Hillnote is a writing and planning workspace for people who want their notes on their own disk, with AI available inside the editor. It runs on Mac, Windows, iOS and Android. The editor, workspace and local AI work offline, and getting started doesn't require an account.

Trilium Notes is a local-first note-taking app for people building a large personal knowledge base. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, or on your own server through Docker, with browser access and a mobile web interface. It's free and open source under AGPL-3.0.

Anarlog, formerly Hyprnote, is a desktop AI meeting notetaker for people who want to keep private conversations on their own hardware. It captures audio from your device without adding a bot to the call and stays hidden during screen sharing. The app runs on macOS, Windows and Linux; its community application is open source under the MIT license.

Pieces runs in the background on your computer and builds a searchable history of your work across apps. It's for people who need to recover a decision, find earlier research or resume a task after switching between tools. Memories stay on your machine by default.

Blinko is a self-hosted AI note app for quickly capturing thoughts and retrieving them later. Notes and data are stored in your own environment, with plain-text storage and Markdown formatting. The project is licensed under GPL-3.0.

Joplin Jarvis is an AI assistant for people who keep their writing, research, or personal knowledge in Joplin on desktop and mobile. It connects conversations to your existing notes and supports local LLMs through Ollama alongside cloud services such as GPT, Claude, Gemini, and Hugging Face.

Logseq is an AGPL-3.0 knowledge base with an outline editor, linked references and block references. It combines note-taking with task management, PDF annotations and flashcards. Search and queries can gather related information into tables.

Text Generator is an MIT-licensed Obsidian plugin for generating ideas, titles, summaries, outlines and paragraphs using your notes as context. It supports local models as well as OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Hugging Face.

Obsidian Local GPT brings AI writing assistance into Obsidian, with local Ollama models for private, offline use or connections to OpenAI-compatible services. It's for people who want help with their notes while keeping control over where the AI runs. The plugin is open source under the MIT license.

Obsidian Copilot brings AI agents into your vault to find notes by meaning, edit drafts and organize research. It's for writers, researchers and other Obsidian users who want AI to work directly with their existing notes. Agents create Markdown files, wikilinks and canvases that remain in your vault.

Smart Connections is an Obsidian plugin that finds notes and passages related to what you're writing, even when you haven't linked them or entered a search query. It's for researchers, writers, and people whose vaults contain useful work they struggle to find again. Matches depend on meaning, so earlier research or a relevant decision can appear beside your current note without manual tagging.

Cognee gives AI agents persistent memory across sessions, connecting documents, code, and conversations in a searchable knowledge graph. It's for developers who want agents to retain project context and teams whose knowledge sits across tickets, discussions, and repositories. The Python package is open source under Apache 2.0.

Vexa is a meeting bot and transcription API for developers building meeting features and teams feeding calls into AI agents. Bots join Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Zoom, then send live transcripts with speaker labels to your application or agent. You can host the full platform on your own infrastructure or use Vexa's cloud service.

Linkwarden is a self-hosted bookmark manager for people and teams who want to keep the pages behind their saved links. It archives webpages as HTML, screenshots, and PDFs, so you can revisit the content even if the original site removes it. It's useful for research, shared reference collections, and articles you want to read later.

AppFlowy is a self-hosted Notion alternative for teams that want project management, shared documents, and AI in an environment they control. Its self-hosted enterprise offering can run on premises, in your own cloud, or in an air-gapped environment. Self-hosted LLMs and embedding models let you keep AI processing and workspace data inside your infrastructure, with no vendor access to your instance.

Msty Studio is a private AI workspace for chatting with local or hosted models and working with your own documents. It offers a desktop app alongside web and team deployment options. Local model support includes MLX, llama.cpp and Ollama.

Vyact is an open source desktop workspace for people who want to use a local LLM with their documents, email and code. It runs on Apple Silicon Macs, Windows and Linux x64 under the AGPL-3.0 license. Intel Macs aren't supported.

Eclaire is a self-hosted AI assistant for notes, documents, photos, bookmarks and tasks. You can ask questions about saved material, inspect the sources behind an answer and ask the assistant to create notes or update tasks. Scheduled automations handle recurring requests such as a weekly task summary.