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Quivr vs SurfSense

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted self-hosted ai options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
QU Quivr Opinionated RAG framework for your second brain VS SU SurfSense Customizable AI research agent connected to your knowledge
FeatureQuivrSurfSense
Deploy effortUnder-an-hour setupUnder-an-hour setup
Health score67 · Good96 · Excellent
Known vulnerabilities3 known issues in core-0.0.33None known in v2.2.0
CategorySelf-Hosted AISelf-Hosted AI
LicenseApache-2.0Apache-2.0
LanguageGoPython
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM2,048 MB2,048 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, source
GitHub stars★ 39,586★ 16,423
First released20232024
ReplacesNotebookLMNotebookLM, Perplexity

What are Quivr and SurfSense?

Quivr

Quivr is an open-source RAG framework that helps developers build personal knowledge assistants over documents. It focuses on making retrieval-augmented generation simple and embeddable into products.

  • RAG framework
  • Document ingestion
  • Embeddable into apps
  • Many file types

Read the full Quivr guide →

SurfSense

SurfSense is a self-hosted AI research assistant that connects to your documents, browser history, and external sources to answer questions with citations. It functions as a private alternative to NotebookLM and Perplexity.

  • Cited research answers
  • Connectors for many sources
  • Local and cloud LLM support
  • Podcast generation

Read the full SurfSense guide →

Quivr vs SurfSense: key differences

Quivr is written in Go, while SurfSense is built with Python. Quivr has the considerably larger community, at 39,586 GitHub stars versus 16,423.

Why pick each one

Choose Quivr if…

  • Developer-friendly RAG core
  • Embeds into products
  • Many file formats

Watch out for

  • Requires LLM API keys
  • Project scope shifted often
Quivr details

Choose SurfSense if…

  • Answers with citations
  • Many source connectors
  • Private NotebookLM alternative

Watch out for

  • Young project
  • Multi-service stack
SurfSense details

Frequently asked questions

Is Quivr or SurfSense better?

Neither is universally better. Quivr has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Quivr and SurfSense free and open-source?

Yes. Quivr is licensed under Apache-2.0 and SurfSense under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Quivr and SurfSense with Docker?

Quivr: yes. SurfSense: yes.

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