Surf

About Surf

Local-first personal AI notebook that ingests files and webpages, generates structured notes from them using your choice of open model, and keeps all data on your device — open source, open data, no vendor lock-in.

Best for: Researchers, writers, and knowledge workers who want a private AI note-taking assistant that works with local models like Gemma and DeepSeek instead of sending documents to a cloud API.

Deployment: Desktop application (macOS and Windows builds available from the GitHub releases page). No server setup required — point it at a local model provider or an API key and start adding documents.

Skill level: Beginner

Tradeoffs

Younger project than Obsidian or Notion — fewer integrations and plugin ecosystem. Local model quality depends on your hardware; weaker GPUs or CPU-only setups will produce slower, lower-quality notes than cloud alternatives. Web capture may not handle JavaScript-heavy SPAs well. Desktop-only — no mobile or web app currently.

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Best for

Researchers, writers, and knowledge workers who want a private AI note-taking assistant that works with local models like Gemma and DeepSeek instead of sending documents to a cloud API.

Why use it

Surf is one of the few AI notebook tools built on a genuinely local-first architecture with open model support. Most AI note tools (NotebookLM, Notion AI, Mem) send your documents to cloud APIs. Surf keeps data local, supports Gemma, DeepSeek, and Claude via a model-agnostic interface, and exports to open formats. Apache-2.0 license from the Deta team (makers of Deta Space).

Key features

• Local-first document ingestion: drag in PDFs, markdown files, and web URLs — content stays on your device and is never sent to a third party
• Open model support: works with Gemma, DeepSeek, and Claude via configurable model endpoints — swap providers without migrating data
• Structured note generation: AI summarizes, extracts key points, and generates structured notes from ingested content in a format you own
• Web page capture: paste a URL and Surf fetches and ingests the page content for AI-assisted note generation
• Open data format: your notes and ingested content are stored in portable formats, not a proprietary database

Common AI use cases

• Load a collection of research PDFs and web articles into Surf and generate structured summaries using a local Gemma or DeepSeek model without sending documents to any API
• Capture web pages during research sessions and use AI note generation to extract key points into a searchable local knowledge base
• Build a private company knowledge base from internal documents that must stay on-premise, using local models for AI-assisted note generation

Who should use it

• Researchers and writers who process large volumes of documents and want AI-assisted note generation without uploading to cloud APIs
• Privacy-conscious users who need an alternative to NotebookLM or Notion AI that keeps data local
• Developers and technical founders who want a lightweight, open-source alternative to Obsidian Copilot or similar tools

Who should not use it

• Teams needing mobile access — Surf is desktop-only
• Users who need a rich plugin ecosystem or two-way sync with other tools like Notion or Roam
• Workflows that require very fast note generation on low-end hardware — local model quality depends heavily on available VRAM

Tradeoffs

Younger project than Obsidian or Notion — fewer integrations and plugin ecosystem. Local model quality depends on your hardware; weaker GPUs or CPU-only setups will produce slower, lower-quality notes than cloud alternatives. Web capture may not handle JavaScript-heavy SPAs well. Desktop-only — no mobile or web app currently.

Alternatives

• AnythingLLM
• LibreChat