NoteGen: AI Note-Taking for Local-First Markdown
NoteGen is a local-first Markdown app that separates jotting down a stray thought from turning it into a finished note, using AI only for the reorganizing step. Reach for it if you capture more raw material (voice memos, screenshots, links) than you ever get around to filing; skip it if you just want a plain, mature Markdown editor without an AI layer in the loop.
Streamlining Idea Capture
The moment you make someone pick a folder and title before they can save a thought, half the thought is gone. NoteGen's actual bet is narrower than "AI notes": it splits capture (a voice memo, a screenshot, a link) from organizing, so a stray idea can go into a record with zero decisions attached, then get sorted into a real Markdown note later, once you've collected enough related fragments to make organizing worth doing.
Introducing NoteGen
NoteGen is a desktop and mobile app for Markdown notes, built on Tauri with a Next.js frontend, that stores your files locally instead of locking them into a database or cloud format. It bundles a capture inbox, an AI-assisted organizing step, a canvas for diagrams, and a searchable knowledge base into one program, but every note it produces is still a plain Markdown file you can open elsewhere.
Key Capabilities
- ✓Capture inbox for thoughts, voice recordings, screenshots, images, links, files, and todos, kept separate from your organized notes until you're ready to file them.
- ✓AI-assisted organizing: pick a template or describe what you want, and NoteGen turns selected records into a summary, report, article, or other Markdown structure you can still edit.
- ✓Editor with tables, task lists, code blocks, math, diagrams, and document outlines, plus both a Markdown source mode and a visual editing mode.
- ✓Knowledge base built from your own files, combining semantic retrieval (vector indexing) with local text search so you can use a note, a set of records, or the whole knowledge base as chat context.
- ✓Canvas workspace for flowcharts, mind maps, timelines, freehand drawings, and data charts, with AI-suggested content that stays editable afterward.
- ✓MCP server support and installable Skills, plus an Agent mode for working through longer tasks against your notes and files.
- ✓Sync through services you likely already have accounts with — GitHub, GitLab, Gitee, Gitea, S3-compatible storage, or WebDAV — or just keep local backups with no cloud step at all.
Practical Applications
- •Recording pieces of a meeting plus a couple of screenshots, then assembling the whole thing into meeting notes afterward instead of typing live.
- •Saving links and reading fragments through the week and turning them into one research note on Friday instead of re-reading everything cold.
- •Filtering the week's tagged records to put together a status report without hunting across several separate apps.
- •Dropping a folder of images and documents into a topic and asking questions against that material as context instead of pasting it into a prompt by hand.
Installing NoteGen
NoteGen ships desktop builds for Windows, macOS (Apple Silicon or Intel), and Linux (AppImage, DEB, or RPM), all currently listed as Beta on the project's own download page. Android is Alpha as an ARM64 APK, and iOS is Alpha through TestFlight. GitHub Releases serve as a fallback mirror if the primary download link is down. Setup is not mandatory. After installing, you choose a workspace folder for your Markdown files, add your first record or note, and configure an AI provider only when you want an AI feature — you don't need to touch every setting before writing your first note.
Strengths
- ✓Notes stay as plain Markdown files in a workspace you pick, so you can open them in another editor, put them in Git, or drop NoteGen entirely without an export step.
- ✓Capture and organizing are genuinely separate steps, which matches how ideas actually arrive — you're not forced to structure a thought before you're allowed to save it.
- ✓AI is optional and swappable rather than tied to one vendor: you configure your own providers per task (chat, writing, embeddings, image recognition, OCR, audio).
- ✓Sync rides on accounts you likely already have — GitHub, GitLab, Gitee, Gitea, S3-compatible storage, or WebDAV — instead of a proprietary sync service you have to trust.
Current Considerations
- △Windows, macOS, and Linux builds are labeled Beta and the Android and iOS builds are labeled Alpha on the project's own download table, so mobile in particular should be treated as early software, not a finished release.
- △Every AI feature depends on you configuring your own provider and models handling capabilities such as chat, writing, embeddings, image recognition, OCR, and audio separately — there's no bundled default that just works out of the box.
- △The README doesn't document exact system requirements, storage limits for the local knowledge base, or how sync conflicts are resolved when two devices edit the same note offline.
- △GPL-3.0 licensing means anything you build on top of NoteGen's code and distribute has to stay GPL-3.0 too, which is a real constraint if you wanted to fork it into a closed commercial product.
Beyond Traditional Note-Taking
Common Questions
NoteGen is open source, released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 (GPL-3.0), with its code hosted on GitHub and pull requests accepted from contributors.
NoteGen has desktop builds for Windows, macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), and Linux (AppImage, DEB, or RPM), all listed as Beta, plus an Alpha Android APK (ARM64) and an Alpha iOS build through TestFlight.
NoteGen stores notes locally first and syncs across devices through services you connect yourself — GitHub, GitLab, Gitee, Gitea, S3-compatible storage, or WebDAV — or you can keep local backups without turning on any cloud sync at all.
NoteGen connects to AI providers and models you configure yourself, with separate model choices available for chat, writing, embeddings, image recognition, OCR, and audio — it isn't locked to one vendor's default.
NoteGen keeps notes as ordinary Markdown files inside a workspace folder you choose, so you can open them in another Markdown editor, track them in Git, or move them without any export step.
NoteGen is released under GPL-3.0, which permits commercial use but requires that any distributed derivative work built on its code also be licensed under GPL-3.0 — check the license terms before building a closed product on top of it.
Who should try it — and who should skip
Try NoteGen if you already lose good ideas to a blank "Untitled Note" screen, or if you keep screenshots, voice memos, and half-read links scattered across three different apps with no time to file them. Skip it if you want a stable, feature-complete tool right now — the desktop builds are Beta and the mobile builds are Alpha — or if you'd rather not manage your own AI provider keys just to reach the organizing step.