About NoteGen
NoteGen is a local-first Markdown note-taking app built around the idea of capturing first and organizing later. It helps collect scattered snippets, records and clippings and then uses AI to arrange them into clear notes, acting as a personal knowledge base.
It is a desktop application built with Tauri and Next.js. The project topics point to Markdown editing, WebDAV sync, retrieval augmented generation, MCP and agent features, and the README describes configurable model settings with an OpenAI-compatible interface for conversations, note organization, writing assistance, translation and summarization. Knowledge base features reference embeddings, reranking, OCR and speech.
NoteGen is licensed under GPL-3.0, and downloads, documentation, a business offering and community discussions are linked from the repository. Since it is a local app, you keep notes on your own machine and choose which model provider to connect, which suits people building a personal knowledge management system.
Key features
- Local-first Markdown editor
- AI-assisted note organization
- OpenAI-compatible model configuration
- Knowledge base with retrieval support
- WebDAV sync support
- Desktop app built with Tauri
Good fit for
- →Personal knowledge management
- →Collecting and summarizing research snippets
- →Writing and translation with AI help
- Tags
- note-taking
- markdown
- local-first
- ai-notes
- knowledge-base
- tauri
- rag
- mcp
- pkm
NoteGen: questions and answers
- What is NoteGen used for?
- NoteGen is a local-first Markdown note-taking app built with Tauri that collects scattered information and uses AI to turn it into organized notes. It is a good fit for personal knowledge management, collecting and summarizing research snippets, and writing and translation with AI help.
- Is NoteGen open source?
- Yes. NoteGen is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at codexu/note-gen and is written mainly in TypeScript.
- Is NoteGen free?
- Yes. NoteGen is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
- Can I self-host NoteGen?
- Yes. NoteGen can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
- What is NoteGen an alternative to?
- NoteGen is an open-source alternative to Mem, Obsidian, Inkdrop and mymind. Other open-source alternatives to Mem include Blinko, Eclaire and AFFiNE.
- Is NoteGen actively maintained?
- Yes. The most recent commit to NoteGen was on 30 September 2026. The project has 13k stars on GitHub.
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