The hosted chat that used to run on this page is switched off. Everything it did now runs on your own machine instead: still no account, still no login, and no token allowance to run out of.
Windows, macOS and Linux. Free forever, and the source is public.
What changed
The anonymous chat on this page ran on our servers against a shared token pool. That is the part that is gone. SurfSense itself is not going anywhere: it is a desktop app now, and the app is the free version.
That swap is why there is no allowance any more. We are not paying for your inference, so there is nothing to meter: you bring a key and your provider bills you at cost, or you run a model on your own hardware and pay nobody. Either way the cap that used to cut you off does not exist.
In the app
The app connects to any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Paste the base URL for DeepSeek and your own key, pick DeepSeek R1, and it runs from your machine against your own account.
The app ships a local catalog it downloads through Ollama, so a Qwen3 model runs on your own hardware for nothing. No key, no account, and it works with the network unplugged.
Add PDFs, Word files, spreadsheets and pages, ask across all of them with citations, and turn the answers into a deck, a report or a briefing podcast.
The hosted chat was free until the shared pool ran out, which is the part nobody liked. The app has no pool to share: it runs on your machine, so the only limits are your own hardware and whatever your provider charges you.
There is no seat to provision, no tenant to configure and no admin console, because there is no server. The only identity involved is your operating system user.
Not on our servers: the hosted free chat that used to run on this page is closed. The SurfSense desktop app has no account and no login at all, so nothing there asks you to sign in. For DeepSeek R1 you supply your own API key, or run one of the app's local models with no key.
Yes. The app and every update are free forever on Windows, macOS and Linux, and a 30-day licence for the scraper plugins comes with it. There is no account to create and no trial clock on the app itself.
They were a shared allowance on our hosted service, and that service is switched off. The app has no allowance because we are not paying for the inference any more: you either point it at your own provider key, which your provider bills you for at cost, or run a model on your own hardware for nothing.
For DeepSeek R1 itself, yes: the app connects to any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, so you paste the base URL for DeepSeek and your own key. If you would rather not have a key at all, the app ships a local catalog that runs a Qwen3 model offline for free.
Nowhere. Sources, chats and everything generated from them live in one local workspace, a folder in your user directory with a database file in it. We hold no copy and keep no log, and with no account there is nothing tying you to one. Anonymous chat was never stored in a database either, so there is nothing of yours left on the old service.
One installer, no account, and your documents never leave the machine you put them on.
