Self-host OpenBrief
v0.4.0Desktop app turning videos into searchable briefings
- Stars
- 579
What is OpenBrief?
OpenBrief is a local-first desktop application built with Tauri v2 that helps users turn long videos, audio recordings, and screen captures into clear, actionable briefings. It imports local media files or video URLs (including YouTube), extracts transcripts using on-device speech-to-text models like Whisper, Parakeet, and Qwen3-ASR, generates grounded markdown summaries with timestamped takeaways, and provides a chat interface to ask questions against the transcript or summary. Summaries can be converted to audio using local text-to-speech models (Supertonic 3, Qwen3-TTS) or cloud providers. The app organizes sources in a searchable library, supports playlists, and exports notes to Markdown. It runs entirely on the user's machine with no account required; optional cloud AI providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, OpenRouter) can be configured with user-supplied API keys. Native installers are available for macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows (64-bit), and Linux (Debian package). The project is licensed under AGPL-3.0.
Should you self-host OpenBrief?
OpenBrief scores 45/100 on selfhost.directory (how scoring works) and ranks #7 of 15 in Audio Processing. It has 579 GitHub stars.
It shipped 1 stable release in the past year. The latest, v0.4.0, came out on 25 May 2026.
Setup is easy: most people get it running in one sitting. It is AGPL-3.0-licensed and written mostly in Typescript.
Its closest alternative on selfhost.directory is Retrieval-based-Voice-Conversion-WebUI (77/100, 38 918 stars). It scores higher overall, so compare the two before you pick. See OpenBrief vs Retrieval-based-Voice-Conversion-WebUI side by side.
Features
- Chat with media context
- Cross-platform desktop
- Grounded markdown summaries
- Local speech-to-text transcription
- Markdown export
- Multiple LLM provider supportLocal Gemma 4 support is on the roadmap
- Privacy-first local processing
- Searchable library with playlists
- Text-to-speech playback
- Video and audio import
OpenBrief README
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