Running a local LLM sounds like a solid use case, just not sure if it actually performs as well as the description claims.
Show HN: Deta Surf – An open source and local-first AI notebook
21–30 of 44 posts
Re: Show HN: Deta Surf – An open source and local-first AI notebook
#22Is this an open source equivalent to google’s NotebookLM? I can tell. How does it stack up features wise?
We see NotebookLM as the closest thing!
Surf is built entirely on editable WYSIWYG documents, NotebookLM's main AI is built on chat. Surf is built to be a bit more open, NotebookLM was a bit locked down for our taste.
An example I'd highlight is taking notes against a PDF.
NotebookLM will convert the PDF to simple text, and the chat responses are read only. NotebookLM also has a lot of strict walls between chat, artifacts & sources. You have to "save" responses as (read only) notes, and move notes to sources.
With Surf you can generate notes that deep link to specific pages in the PDF, and Surf will open those pages in the original PDF. You can remove the fluff you don't want in your notes. The intention is to be a little more open -- all notes are sources from the get go, you don't have to save or migrate anything.
Re: Show HN: Deta Surf – An open source and local-first AI notebook
#23Kudos on the launch. Love the local-ai approach. Regarding open models: what is the go-to way for me to make Surf run with qwen3-vl? Ollama? As far as I understand any endpoint that supports the completions API will work? https://github.com/deta/surf/blob/main/docs/AI_MODELS.md If I attach image context will it be provided to qwen3-vl? Or does this only work with the "main" models like OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini and s…
Thank you.
Yes, we support any endpoint that supports the completions API. And yes, Ollama might be the easiest to setup. The images should also work with qwen3-vl.
But if you run into any issues, please feel free to submit a bug report https://github.com/deta/surf/issues
Edit: fixed github issues link
Re: Show HN: Deta Surf – An open source and local-first AI notebook
#24[deleted]
Re: Show HN: Deta Surf – An open source and local-first AI notebook
#25Nice, congrats! Off-topic, you guys are based in Berlin? I just recently moved in. Any recommendation for meetups or groups pro AI/startups?
Re: Show HN: Deta Surf – An open source and local-first AI notebook
#26Nice, congrats! Off-topic, you guys are based in Berlin? I just recently moved in. Any recommendation for meetups or groups pro AI/startups?
We are in Berlin. Welcome!
Don't know too many, unfortunately. AI Tinkerers organizes a few a year: https://berlin.aitinkerers.org/
Re: Show HN: Deta Surf – An open source and local-first AI notebook
#27Looks interesting! What is the business model?
Re: Show HN: Deta Surf – An open source and local-first AI notebook
#28Looks interesting! What is the business model?
Great question. We'd look at Obsidian as a reference.
We think there are a lot of value added services that can happen when you need servers, but they should be user aligned & optional (Mobile app, sync, publishing, backups, remote jobs, collab).
We want Surf's client to be independent & open, but offer some of these on top -- for people who want them!
Re: Show HN: Deta Surf – An open source and local-first AI notebook
#29This is a neat app. Though when looking at the files in finder it looks like while some files are stored as '.md' files the sample md files only contain HTML.
Re: Show HN: Deta Surf – An open source and local-first AI notebook
#30This is a neat app. Though when looking at the files in finder it looks like while some files are stored as '.md' files the sample md files only contain HTML.
Ah that might be a bug sorry, the sample notes should also have the html extension. The notes themselves are currently stored as html (because of the metadata and the state in notes mainly, you can still export to markdown).
We need to do some work before we can also just store them simply as markdown files.