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How to use Open Notebook: what you can do with it

What is Open Notebook? Open Notebook is an open source, self-hosted alternative to Google's NotebookLM. You add PDFs, videos, audio and web pages to notebooks, chat with an AI that cites your sources, search across everything and generate podcasts with one to four speakers. It works with 20+ model providers, including local Ollama and LM Studio, and runs with Docker Compose.

How do I use it? Run mkdir open-notebook && cd open-notebook and download docker-compose.yml with the README's curl command; then Change OPEN_NOTEBOOK_ENCRYPTION_KEY to a long random secret, for example from openssl rand -hex 32; start it with docker compose up -d. Full steps below.

2 people shared what they built with Open Notebook. See what people are building

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What do you want to do?

3 use cases

What people are building with Open Notebook

  • Hands-onthe web

    Ran Open Notebook natively on an M1 Max without Docker, using Ollama with qwen3.6:35b and bge-m3

    The author skipped Docker by running SurrealDB v2 as a native binary and Open Notebook with uv, fixed a libmagic import error, then connected local Ollama: qwen3.6:35b for chat and bge-m3 for embeddings, registered separately, so the whole RAG stack ran without cloud APIs.

    Open Notebook on GitHub

    By Ikesan (lilting.ch) on the web

    View original post on the web

  • Hands-onthe web

    Set up Open Notebook with Ollama in Docker as a private NotebookLM replacement

    Using the local quick start compose file, one docker compose up pulled Open Notebook, SurrealDB and Ollama (about 4 GB for Ollama), then the UI opened on port 8502 with no models until a chat and an embedding model were added. The author compares its Chat and Ask modes and per source context controls with NotebookLM.

    Open Notebook on GitHubTry it: Self-host a private NotebookLM alternative with Docker

    By Nolen Jonker (xda-developers.com) on the web

    View original post on the web

Real builds shared on X, Hacker News, Reddit, DEV and GitHub, summed up by Deduped from each post and its links; each card links to the original post. See what people are building with other repos

Quick start with Open Notebook

  1. Check you have what it needs: Docker Desktop (macOS, Windows) or Docker Engine with the Compose plugin (Linux); An API key from an AI provider, or a local model server such as Ollama; At least one language model and one embedding model configured in the UI.
  2. Open lfnovo/open-notebook on GitHub and read the README and license.
  3. Run mkdir open-notebook && cd open-notebook and download docker-compose.yml with the README's curl command
  4. Change OPEN_NOTEBOOK_ENCRYPTION_KEY to a long random secret, for example from openssl rand -hex 32
  5. Start it with docker compose up -d
  6. Wait about 30 seconds and open http://localhost:8502

These steps come from our top use case, Self-host a private NotebookLM alternative with Docker, which also has a copy-paste agent prompt.

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About this repo

  • Who it is forResearchers, students and analysts who like NotebookLM but want their documents private and their choice of AI model.
  • Why it is hot41k stars, talked about in 3 AI sources we track
  • LanguageTypeScript
  • Sourcegithub.com/lfnovo/open-notebook ยท Back to Hot repos

Requirements

  • Docker Desktop (macOS, Windows) or Docker Engine with the Compose plugin (Linux)
  • An API key from an AI provider, or a local model server such as Ollama
  • At least one language model and one embedding model configured in the UI

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Questions about Open Notebook

What is Open Notebook?

Open Notebook is an open source, self-hosted alternative to Google's NotebookLM. You add PDFs, videos, audio and web pages to notebooks, chat with an AI that cites your sources, search across everything and generate podcasts with one to four speakers. It works with 20+ model providers, including local Ollama and LM Studio, and runs with Docker Compose. It is an open-source project on GitHub: https://github.com/lfnovo/open-notebook.

How do I use Open Notebook?

Run mkdir open-notebook && cd open-notebook and download docker-compose.yml with the README's curl command; then Change OPEN_NOTEBOOK_ENCRYPTION_KEY to a long random secret, for example from openssl rand -hex 32; start it with docker compose up -d. The use cases on this page give the full steps and a copy-paste agent prompt for each job.

Who is Open Notebook for?

Researchers, students and analysts who like NotebookLM but want their documents private and their choice of AI model.

What can I do with Open Notebook?

3 use cases so far, for example: Self-host a private NotebookLM alternative with Docker; Chat with your PDFs and web pages and get cited answers; Turn your research into a podcast with up to four speakers. Each has steps and a copy-paste agent prompt.

What do I need to run Open Notebook?

Docker Desktop (macOS, Windows) or Docker Engine with the Compose plugin (Linux); An API key from an AI provider, or a local model server such as Ollama; At least one language model and one embedding model configured in the UI.

What are alternatives to Open Notebook?

Other hot AI repos in Research: Sam2, Docling, LightRAG, Ragflow, Markitdown.

Is Open Notebook safe to run?

Deduped does not own, audit or vouch for it. Read the README and license, run it on your own systems first and review every command before you run it.