Anarlog
Local-first meeting notepad that records device audio instead of joining calls as a bot, transcribes on-device and keeps notes in a local SQLite file. MIT licensed, formerly Hyprnote.
Overview
Started life as Hyprnote, spent a short spell called char and now ships as Anarlog from the fastrepl team. The pitch is a local-first meeting notepad. It listens to microphone and system audio on your own machine rather than dialling into the call as a bot, transcribes with an on-device model where one is available, and writes everything to a SQLite file you own. Roughly 9,200 GitHub stars and a desktop line at 1.4.12 as of August 2026.
Underneath it is a Tauri v2 application, Rust with a React front end. Transcription can run through Soniqo or Apple Speech on Apple Silicon, or be handed to a provider you choose. Summarisation talks to any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, so Ollama, LM Studio or a vLLM server on your own box all slot in, and recent builds let you attach an existing ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot subscription rather than paying for models twice. The community application is MIT. Some enterprise pieces, including the self-hosted server, sit under a separate commercial licence, with the boundary written out in LICENSING.md.
It suits engineers and technical leads who need meeting notes but cannot justify a third-party bot turning up in a customer's call, or who work on networks where a US SaaS recorder is unreliable. Hosted Pro at $15 a month buys managed transcription and models for anyone who would rather not run their own. What you give up is cross-team search, a polished mobile story and the summary quality of a hosted frontier model.
Key Features
- ✓ Captures microphone and system audio on the machine itself, so no recorder bot appears in the participant list
- ✓ On-device transcription through Soniqo or Apple Speech on Apple Silicon, including speaker diarization
- ✓ Summarisation points at any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, so Ollama, LM Studio or your own vLLM server all work
- ✓ Notes and transcripts live in a local SQLite database you can read, query and back up yourself
- ✓ Recent 1.4.x builds connect an existing ChatGPT, Claude, Grok or Copilot subscription instead of a separate AI bill
- ✓ Tauri v2 desktop builds for macOS, Windows and Linux, with per-note locking and pre-meeting briefs
Where it holds
- • Sidesteps the consent problem now generating lawsuits against bot-based notetakers, because nothing joins the call
- • Runs genuinely offline, which matters on customer sites and on networks where a US SaaS recorder is flaky
- • MIT licence on the community app means you can audit the audio path rather than trust a policy page
- • The free tier is the whole application, not a crippled demo
Where it breaks
- • Three names in about a year, Hyprnote then char then Anarlog, so older docs, links and blog posts are a mess
- • Windows and Linux builds are still beta; macOS on Apple Silicon is the only first-class target
- • Summary quality from a local model trails a hosted frontier model, so offline costs you accuracy
- • No team-wide search across colleagues' meetings unless you buy the enterprise self-hosted server
My Take
Audio comes off the device itself, so nothing shows up in the participant list and there is no third-party attendee to disclose. That architectural choice matters more in August 2026 than it did a year ago, now that Fireflies, Otter and Granola are all defending consent claims. Desktop is at 1.4.12 with macOS, Windows and Linux builds, though the last two are labelled beta and the Apple Silicon work is clearly where the effort goes. Summaries from a local Ollama model are usable but thinner than Granola's hosted output, so treat the offline path as a compliance decision rather than a quality one.
Quick Info
- Pricing:
- open-source
- Openness:
- Open source
- Licence:
- MIT
- Starting at:
- Community desktop app is free under MIT and runs on your own API keys or fully on-device models. Anarlog Pro adds hosted transcription and hosted models at $15 per month or $150 per year. Enterprise adds a self-hosted server for regulated environments, priced on request.
- Added:
- Aug 2026
- Updated:
- Aug 2026
Use Cases
Judge it on your own work
The notes above say where Anarlog holds and where it breaks. The fastest check is your own workload.
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