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Software · Self-hosting

poltergeist

A quiet brain for your loud apps — a local-first second brain; nothing leaves your machine.

  • Completely free
  • Windows, macOS and Linux
  • Open source
  • No account

Overview

poltergeist is a note-taking program, available on Windows, macOS and Linux.

Features described in its GitHub repository and on its official website: offline use and Markdown support.

Overview written by LicitPro from the documentation published by the authors and the cited sources; we have not tried the resource ourselves.

Excerpts that establish this information
  • “a quiet brain for your loud apps — a local-first second brain; nothing leaves your machine” — GitHub, 10 November 2026
  • “a quiet brain for your loud apps — a local-first second brain; nothing leaves your machine” — GitHub, 10 November 2026
  • “poltergeist quietly haunts every app you use — gmail, slack, notion, linear, calendar — pulls every passing thought into your obsidian vault, and lets you query the whole archive in plain markdown.” — official website, 10 November 2026

At a glance

All of poltergeist is free: no feature is locked behind a paid plan, and its code is open.

Its licence (MIT) is a permissive open source licence: use, modification and redistribution are allowed, including in commercial projects.

Strengths

  • Open source code
  • No account needed
  • Commercial use allowed

Sources and checks

  • Facts collected from GitHub (credit card, account, source code, publisher, licence, free status, platforms, commercial use) —
  • Facts collected from Unspecified source (platforms) —
  • Last technical check: 7 November 2026
  • Description from github.com — Dépôt GitHub nikrich/poltergeist (MIT)

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