ResearchNotebookLM

ResearchNotebookLM is a free, self-hosted alternative to Google NotebookLM for people studying papers, collecting research or working with private documents. It runs through a browser on Windows, macOS or Linux, and can run on your own server. With Ollama, questions and answers stay local and work offline without a cloud account.

Its chat uses excerpts from your selected sources and cites source titles in answers. It instructs the model to acknowledge when the material doesn't contain an answer, rather than fill gaps with outside knowledge. You can collect PDFs, text and Markdown alongside web articles and YouTube captions. PDF processing includes OCR and table extraction; fetching online sources needs an internet connection.

The same material can become briefings, timelines, FAQs or study aids such as quizzes and flashcards. Mind maps organize concepts, while knowledge analysis identifies themes and gaps. Outputs appear in the research chat. A source viewer lets you inspect extracted text and Markdown with headings and tables preserved.

Projects keep sources, notes and chat history on disk, with ChromaDB storing the local search index. You can save answers as notes, write your own, search files across projects and restore deleted projects from trash.

Model choice extends beyond Ollama to OpenAI-compatible APIs, including OpenRouter, NVIDIA NIM and self-hosted vLLM. Cloud providers receive source excerpts for inference; local storage alone doesn't make those requests private. Automatic fallback tries another provider when one fails. The app includes MIT and Apache 2.0 licenses and has no built-in login system.