I found an open-source NotebookLM alternative that's powerful, private - and free

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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

Open Notebook is an open-source instrumentality connected NotebookLM.
Open Notebook tin beryllium installed and utilized for free.
You bash person to recognize Linux and containers to deploy it.

NotebookLM has go an incredibly fashionable instrumentality for research, organizing, interacting with documents, generating summaries, creating flashcards, and producing tailored reports. With NotebookLM, you tin adhd your ain sources and past usage AI to marque informative connections betwixt those sources, which leads to an adjacent amended knowing of the material. NotebookLM lone works connected uploaded material, truthful you power the sources.

Also: How to usage Claude (and however it's antithetic from ChatGPT)

The biggest contented with NotebookLM is that it's a cloud-based service, truthful you cannot tally it locally. Although you tin nexus NotebookLM to locally-installed AI (such arsenic Ollama), that combination's usage is constricted to definite functions.

If you privation to bounds NotebookLM to lone usage locally-installed AI, you'd beryllium retired of luck.

What bash you bash if you spot a precocious worth connected privacy, but inactive request to usage a instrumentality similar NotebookLM wrong your location network?

Fortunately, there's an open-source alternate that tin beryllium deployed that is conscionable arsenic almighty and tin usage your AI of choice… adjacent locally-installed AI.

That instrumentality is called Open Notebook, and it is conscionable arsenic almighty arsenic NotebookLM.

If you're superior astir your privateness and the privateness of your data, Open Notebook is the lone mode to go.

Think astir it this way: utilizing NotebookLM requires that you upload your sources to a third-party unreality service. Those sources could incorporate delicate accusation astir you, your family, your friends, oregon your company. Do you truly privation to manus that implicit to a 3rd party?

I don't.

That's wherefore I opted for Open Notebook implicit NotebookLM.

Let maine picture my acquisition installing this tool.

Also: How to usage Copilot Pro to write, edit, and analyse your Word documents

It's each astir containers

Deploying Open Notebook requires an knowing of Linux and containers. Before you shy away, utilizing containers isn't astir arsenic hard arsenic you mightiness think. No, it's not astir arsenic casual arsenic double-clicking an installer file, but it's besides not arsenic hard as, say, installing and utilizing a relational database. Without going excessively heavy into the steps for installing Open Notebook, the process looks similar this:

Install Docker
Clone the Open Notebook Git repository
Configure the docker-compose.yml and docker.env files to usage whichever LLMs you prefer
Deploy the Open Notebook container
Point your browser to http://SERVER:8502
Create an relationship (it's escaped and lone stored locally)
Define which LLMs are to beryllium utilized for circumstantial tasks
Create a notebook and upload your sources

If you're not acquainted with editing .yml files oregon utilizing Docker, deploying Open Notebook volition beryllium a chore, but erstwhile you larn however it's done, you'll person opened your satellite up to the limitless satellite of containers… truthful it's a bonus.

The situation of choosing your LLMs

This is wherever things tin get a spot tricky with Open Notebook. Not each LLM is created equal. For example:

Quen2.5-coder is bully arsenic a coding companion
Wizard-math is simply a large logic partner
Gemma 3 is simply a localized mentation of Gemini
Llama 3 is large for long-form text, maintaining context, and performing analyzable reasoning.
AnythingLLM is simply a bully enactment for moving AI agents and handling communal AI tasks.
GPT4ALL is bully for papers investigation and gathering cognition bases.
GPT-OSS is utilized for reasoning and agentic tasks

Your champion stake is to determine connected however you program connected utilizing Open Notebook. Once you person the work up and running, you'll request to prime a exemplary for tasks similar chat, embedding, relation calling, speech-to-text, transformation, and more. The bully quality is that Open Notebook has documentation to assistance you recognize exemplary types and marque the close choices.

Ease of use

Deploying Open Notebook is the lone situation with this tool. Once it's up and running, utilizing it is precise simple. The process looks similar this:

Create a caller notebook
Add sources to the caller notebook
Select the exemplary you privation to use
Query the section AI astir your sources

Also: I turned a YouTube video into flashcards with NotebookLM - here's how

I ran immoderate speedy tests connected this and recovered it to not lone beryllium casual to use, but accelerated and arsenic close arsenic the sources provided. In different words, if your uploaded sources are accurate, the results volition beryllium arsenic well. If your sources incorporate errors and incorrect information, truthful excessively volition the results of your chats.

For example. I downloaded this nonfiction arsenic a .docx record and past uploaded it arsenic a source. I past queried the AI with "What are the steps for installing Open Notebook?" The instrumentality dove into my sources, and past it responded based connected my penning and lone my writing.

Next, I uploaded a antithetic nonfiction I wrote connected deploying Docker, and past queried with "How bash I instal Docker connected Ubuntu?" Once again, due to the fact that the root was accurate, the results were arsenic well.

Open Notebook has been a existent game-changer for me. Until I discovered this tool, I had refused to usage Google's NotebookLM due to the fact that I wasn't astir to upload sources to a third-party and past usage cloud-based AI to enactment connected those sources. With Open Notebook, I tin usage lone locally-installed AI and not person to interest astir those issues.

Also: Upgrade your survey crippled with NotebookLM - here's how

I've reached the constituent wherever I volition lone usage locally-installed AI. With Open Notebook, I tin power the root worldly it uses, and bask a level of privateness and information that cannot beryllium matched by cloud-based AI.

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