An Open-Source NotebookLM Alternative That Runs on a Schedule

NotebookLM's Audio Overviews proved that two AI hosts discussing your documents is a genuinely good way to absorb information. But it's manual, closed, and lives inside Google. Here's the self-hosted, always-on version of that idea.

The core difference: a pipeline, not a button

With NotebookLM you upload a document, click, wait, and download. Repeat for every document, every day. listenwhilerunning inverts this: you declare your sources once — RSS feeds, subreddits, a folder of ebooks — and a pipeline generates audio on schedule, publishing everything to one private podcast feed your podcast app already follows. New audio just appears.

Feature comparison

What NotebookLM still does better

Fairness matters: NotebookLM's interactive mode (interrupting the hosts to ask questions) and its deep multi-document grounding are ahead. If you need conversational Q&A over a research corpus, use NotebookLM. If you want your daily information diet turned into audio automatically, that's what this project is for.

listenwhilerunning is open source (AGPL-3.0) and runs on your own free-tier accounts.

Get it on GitHub → Live demo Hosted version waitlist

FAQ

Does it sound like NotebookLM's hosts?

The format is similar — two hosts, natural back-and-forth, disagreements and summaries. Voice quality depends on the TTS you configure; the default neural voices are close to human narration.

Can I use my own LLM?

Yes. Any OpenAI-compatible endpoint works (OpenRouter, a local model behind a compatible API, etc.). Without an LLM it degrades to plain readout.

Is there a hosted version if I don't want to self-host?

A hosted version is under evaluation — join the waitlist on the homepage and you'll be notified at launch.