Original Reddit post

NotebookLM is one of the best and most useful AI platforms out there, but once you start using it regularly you also feel its limitations leaving something to be desired more. There are limits on the amount of sources you can add in a notebook. There are limits on the number of notebooks you can have. You cannot have sources that exceed 500,000 words and are more than 200MB. You are vendor locked in to Google services (LLMs, usage models, etc.) with no option to configure them. No live data, so you can’t monitor competitors, search results, or social platforms in real time. No file sorting support NotebookLM Agent is specifically optimised for just studying and researching, but you can do so much more with the source data. Lack of multiplayer support. No API or MCP access, so you can’t plug it into your own agents or automate anything. …and more. SurfSense is specifically made to solve these problems. For those who dont know, SurfSense is the open source, privacy focused alternative to NotebookLM for teams with no data limits, and now also a competitive intelligence platform for AI agents with live scraping connectors. It currently empowers you to: Live Data Connectors

  • Scrape Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Google Maps, Google Search, and the open web without the official APIs’ rate limits. REST API + MCP Server
  • Expose every connector as a native tool to Claude, Cursor, or any agent framework. AI Agents & Automations
  • Run research on a schedule or on events, then get cited briefs and alerts written back to Notion, Slack, Linear, and Jira. Control Your Data Flow
  • Keep your data private and secure. No Data Limits
  • Add an unlimited amount of sources and notebooks. No Vendor Lock-in
  • Configure any LLM, image, TTS, and STT models to use. 25+ External Data Sources
  • Add your sources from Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, Notion, and many other external services. Real-Time Multiplayer Support
  • Work easily with your team members in a shared notebook. Desktop App
  • Get assistance in your OS. Check us out at https://github.com/MODSetter/SurfSense if this interests you or if you want to contribute to a open source software submitted by /u/Uiqueblhats

Originally posted by u/Uiqueblhats on r/ArtificialInteligence