These tools are similar but intended for different audiences and workflows. Here’s how they compare.
Blake has over a decade of experience writing for the web, focusing on mobile, where he covered the smartphone boom of the 2010s and the broader tech scene. When he’s not at a keyboard, you’ll likely find him playing video games or watching horror movies.
We are big fans of CarnetLM around here, so much so that it received our Editor’s Choice Award. But it’s not the only one AI tool there who can synthesize your data to better understand it. In fact, there are many options, but none as accessible as NotebookLM.
Maybe you need a more specific type of output or you just don’t want Google to manage your data. Not all of the following tools have cool features like audio or Video previews which helped give NotebookLM its reputation today. Instead, they can offer a more personalized set of features, whether you’re a student, an analyst, or someone who simply prefers more privacy.
Below we’ll detail a few other AI learning tools that have similar features but might be a better fit for you depending on what you’re trying to do, your profession, or your workflow.
Atlas.org
Atlas.org launched in 2024 and its team is made up of current students, recent graduates, and former educators. Its sole purpose is to help you with your homework and it is organized as such.
When you first register and log in, you will be presented with a series of options, each tailored to the learning experience. The three main sections are for studying, homework, and note-taking, and each of these subsections offers different options for diving deeper.
To study, you can create a study guide, quiz, or flash cards. You can automatically create lecture notes from recorded audio or help get detailed answers to questions on your homework.
The information you upload to Atlas.org is preserved forever, so you will have a constantly growing knowledge base about your schoolwork and you can create spaces dedicated to different topics. Like NotebookLM, it also has a mobile app for iOS and Android that lets you learn on the go.
The Atlas trial is free, but the free tier has some pretty high limits. You can upgrade to the Pro version for $18 per month.
Atlas workspace
Yes, another tool with Atlas in its name, but Atlas Workspace is quite specific with its functions. It specializes in knowledge mapping and semantic mapping and is aimed at scientists and research analysts. It basically allows you to create an entire knowledge base on its servers and define exactly what you want to see when you want to see it. The more sources you download, the more you’ll get out of them, and because it’s a collective database of your sources, you don’t need to remember where you saved specific information. This contrasts with NotebookLM’s Notebooks, where sources remain isolated as individual projects.
When you upload a source such as a PDF, Atlas Workspace automatically begins creating a knowledge map, breaking down the main components of your source – and you can start asking specific questions from there. You can also view a semantic map to get a more visual representation of your sources and how you interacted with the tool.
Atlas won’t be for everyone, and that’s because not everyone needs this type of tool. To get the most out of it, you’ll need to spend a lot of time working with it, and the learning curve is quite steep. However, the Atlas Workspace blog offers several in-depth comparisons between its competitors that might be helpful to those who are still hesitant.
The free version of Atlas Workspace allows 10 sources in total and five AI discussions for life, but you will have access to unlimited projects, similar to notebooks in NotebookLM, but projects can connect concepts between projects, following the aspect of knowledge composition. If you opt for the Pro plan at $20 per month, your number of sources increases to 1,000 and you will have unlimited AI chats.
OpenNotebook
We covered OpenNotebook in depth before, and it’s pretty close to a lot of the features that NotebookLM carries with it. However, you’ll need to know what you’re doing to set it up, which can seem incredibly complicated if you don’t consider yourself a “tech” person. However, once configured, it can do a lot of things.
As you would expect, you can upload your sources to OpenNotebook and discuss them with the AI, but what makes this tool special is that you can pretty much choose any AI model you want. This will require more work and, depending on the model, may require a paid API key. You can even use a Local LLM if you wish.
What stands out about OpenNotebook is that it is very privacy-friendly. Your data stays with you and you decide what you share. OpenNotebook is also free and open source.
Blake has over a decade of experience writing for the web, focusing on mobile, where he covered the smartphone boom of the 2010s and the broader tech scene. When he’s not at a keyboard, you’ll likely find him playing video games or watching horror movies. See full bio