Hey Product Hunt & thanks @chrismessina for hunting!
We've been in alpha for about a year and learned a lot from the community. This is a culmination of those efforts.
Surf is an AI Notebook that brings the web and your files directly into your stream of thought. Use any tab, webpage, YouTube video, PDF and more to generate your notes. Surf is built to be personal & open. Data is stored locally in open formats, core code is open source, and it's open to use different AI models (including local).
📹 YouTube Notes: visit a YouTube video and ask a question
🗎 PDF Notes: open a PDF and ask a question
🟪 Create an applet: use the "app generation" tool and ask for an app
🔍 Notes that search: use the "web search" tool and ask a question with "search" in it
Features:
📘 Multi-media Library & Notebooks: Store & organize your favorite YouTube videos, webpages, PDFs, photos & more, all in one place on your local machine.
📝 Smart Notes: generate rich multi-media notes from your media, from a single tab to a full notebook
🖥️ App Generation: create applets without writing code, that help you visualize or understand charts, tables, and diagrams
🖖 Split View & Sidebar: open & navigate your Library using tabs, splits, and the sidebar
🌲 Offline Mode: use your notes and view much of your media offline
Open & Personal
Surf is built to be open & personal in service of the user.
📖 Open Source: Surf's core is open source on GitHub and is designed to work without Deta's servers
💾 Open & Local Data: the data you store in Surf is stored on your machine in open formats
🧠 Open AI: use AI models of your choice, bring your own key, set up a custom model (including local LLMs)
I actually really enjoyed Deta and the onboarding but found myself going back to @Dia Browser (habits + set up). @xeust curious on your take here and is more of Work with instead of vs when it comes to Dia/Atlas and Surf?
@xeust Grats on shipping this! Deta has come a long way since I last spoke to you (years ago when you were working on the deployment/hosting version of it)!
This looks cool!
Can’t speak for this version but yesterday it took me forever to get my data out of Surf. The timing is stark. There’s no guides and the AI itself wasn’t useful. Hope that experience is more clear in this future version. It seems full of features and hope it does well!
Congrats on launch! Love how Surf turns PDFs, YouTube, and webpages into smart notes, while keeping data local and formats open. Model agnostic and open source is huge. Split view, offline mode, and applets sound great. Starred the repo, trying YouTube Notes today.
Absolutely loving Surf. Feels like a browser and journal combined with cool UI. Attaching YT videos, docs, and taking notes is super useful. Big fan already and I’ll be using it every day!
What do you mean by note? Is this similar to Notion or Obsidian with AI integration?
About Deta Surf (Beta) on Product Hunt
“AI Notebooks for the internet (Open Source)”
Deta Surf (Beta) launched on Product Hunt on October 22nd, 2025 and earned 156 upvotes and 7 comments, placing #8 on the daily leaderboard. Surf is an AI notebook that brings your files and the web directly into your stream of thought.
Deta Surf (Beta) was featured in Productivity (651.9k followers), Surfing (1.8k followers) and Writing (59.2k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 144.5k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted Deta Surf (Beta)?
Deta Surf (Beta) was hunted by Chris Messina. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
Want to see how Deta Surf (Beta) stacked up against nearby launches in real time? Check out the live launch dashboard for upvote speed charts, proximity comparisons, and more analytics.
Chris Messina
Hey Product Hunt & thanks @chrismessina for hunting!
We've been in alpha for about a year and learned a lot from the community. This is a culmination of those efforts.
Surf is an AI Notebook that brings the web and your files directly into your stream of thought. Use any tab, webpage, YouTube video, PDF and more to generate your notes. Surf is built to be personal & open. Data is stored locally in open formats, core code is open source, and it's open to use different AI models (including local).
Make sure to check us out on GitHub: https://github.com/deta/surf! (and smash that 🌟)
Things to try:
📹 YouTube Notes: visit a YouTube video and ask a question
🗎 PDF Notes: open a PDF and ask a question
🟪 Create an applet: use the "app generation" tool and ask for an app
🔍 Notes that search: use the "web search" tool and ask a question with "search" in it
Features:
📘 Multi-media Library & Notebooks: Store & organize your favorite YouTube videos, webpages, PDFs, photos & more, all in one place on your local machine.
📝 Smart Notes: generate rich multi-media notes from your media, from a single tab to a full notebook
🖥️ App Generation: create applets without writing code, that help you visualize or understand charts, tables, and diagrams
🖖 Split View & Sidebar: open & navigate your Library using tabs, splits, and the sidebar
🌲 Offline Mode: use your notes and view much of your media offline
Open & Personal
Surf is built to be open & personal in service of the user.
📖 Open Source: Surf's core is open source on GitHub and is designed to work without Deta's servers
💾 Open & Local Data: the data you store in Surf is stored on your machine in open formats
🧠 Open AI: use AI models of your choice, bring your own key, set up a custom model (including local LLMs)
Looking forward to your feedback!