Show HN: Bowerbird – Open-source NotebookLM for any model, with checked quotes

Category: ai-ml

Tags: local-first, rag, citation-verification, rust, notebooklm-alternative, on-device-ocr

Score: 7.5/10 (Innovation: 7, Technical: 8, Documentation: 8, Utility: 7)

Bowerbird is an open-source, local-first NotebookLM alternative that ingests PDFs, web pages, YouTube videos, and audio to answer questions with citations. Its standout feature is verifying each quoted phrase against the cited source to flag unverified or misattributed quotes. It runs search, OCR, and speech on-device while supporting any LLM provider, making it a privacy-conscious research assistant.

Target audience: researchers, students, knowledge workers, privacy-focused developers

Repository: https://github.com/jolovicdev/bowerbird · Rust · MIT

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