Alternatives to Local Deep Research
A self-hosted research assistant that runs multi-step searches with local or cloud language models. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Local Deep Research
A self-hosted research assistant that runs multi-step searches with local or cloud language models.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Local Deep Research.
Vane (formerly Perplexica)
Self-hosted, privacy-focused AI search engine with cited answers.
Vane is an MIT self-hosted AI search engine with cited answers and local Ollama support, focused on web search rather than multi-step reports.
Khoj
Open-source AI second brain that researches across your documents and the web with any model.
Khoj is an AGPL-3.0 self-hosted assistant that researches across your documents and the web, adding scheduled automations and custom agents.
Open Notebook
Self-hosted, open source alternative to Google's NotebookLM.
Open Notebook is an MIT self-hosted NotebookLM alternative centred on your own sources rather than searching arXiv and PubMed.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
RAGFlow
An open-source, self-hostable RAG engine with document ingestion, hybrid search and a visual agent builder.
Kotaemon
An open-source, self-hosted RAG app for chatting with your documents using local or hosted models.
AnythingLLM
A desktop AI app that answers questions about your own documents, with no account and no API key needed.
Ollama
The simplest way to pull down an open language model and run it on your own machine, from one command or a desktop app.
Docling
Open source library that converts documents into AI-ready structured formats.
