A Notion AI alternative where your notes are files in your own folder

Last checked 2026-09-17

Short answer. Notion AI is an assistant inside Notion: it works on pages that live in Notion's cloud, and it comes with the Business plan. localmd is an agent inside a folder on your own disk: your notes are plain Markdown files, the app is a web page with no backend and no account, and you pay only your model provider. If your team lives in Notion — shared databases, comments, permissions — stay there; localmd does none of that. If what you want is an AI that works on notes you own as files, this is that.

Side by side

	Notion AI	localmd
Where your notes live	Notion's cloud database	Markdown files in a folder on your disk
Leaving	Export to Markdown or HTML	Nothing to export — the folder is the data
Account	Required	None
AI pricing	Included in the Business plan, $20 per seat per month; Free and Plus get a limited trial	The app is free; you pay your model provider directly for what you use
Model	Chosen by Notion	Your choice: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, DeepSeek and others
PDFs and EPUBs	Files you upload into the workspace	The ones already in the folder, with citations that click through to the exact paragraph
Changes to your notes	Applied in the workspace, with page history	Every change is a diff you approve; git history underneath
Real-time collaboration, comments, permissions	Yes	No
Databases, boards, calendars	Yes	No — notes, links, backlinks and a graph
Mobile and desktop apps	Yes	No; Chrome or Edge on a desktop (why)
Source code	Closed	Open, MIT

Notion's column is from notion.com/pricing, read on the date above.

Why someone leaves Notion for a folder

Not because Notion is bad. Because the notes are the long-lived thing and the app is not. Notes in a database are reachable through that product, on that company's terms; notes in a folder are reachable by everything — your editor, your backup, git, the next tool you try.

The usual cost of a plain folder is that it does nothing for you: no links kept up, no index, no one to ask. That is the part localmd's agent takes on. It reads what is in the folder — notes, PDFs, EPUBs — writes new linked pages beside them, keeps an index if you want one, and shows you every change as a diff before it lands. It adds; it does not rearrange your files unless you ask.

What "local" does and does not mean here

There is no localmd server, so your notes are not stored anywhere but your own disk. But the text the agent reads is sent to the model provider you configured, under your own key — the same is true of any AI assistant that uses a hosted model.

What you give up

Teams. localmd is a single-person tool. Sharing is git: push the folder to GitHub and someone else can clone it.
Databases and views. No tables-as-databases, boards or calendars.
Phones. There is no mobile version yet.
Zero setup. Past the demo you need an API key from a model provider.
Polish. It is a solo project with rough edges.

Try it without setting anything up

The demo opens with no folder and no key: three linked notes, a real 43-page paper with working citations, and a small free model allowance for a few questions.