Atomic
Capture, automatic connections and cited chat over your notes; bring the model yourself.
Technical Profile & Specs
verified 2026-08-14
- Cost
- $0 / forever (Open Source)
- License
- MIT
- Hosting Model
- Local or hosted (your machine or their cloud)
- Platforms
- desktopmobilewebself-hostedextensionone-click install
- Installation
- Download the macOS/Windows/Linux desktop release, use Atomic Cloud, or self-host its three-service Docker Compose stack
- Operational Setup
- The desktop binary installs cleanly, but first-run setup cannot finish without an embedding and generation backend, either an API key or Ollama plus downloaded models
- Where Your Data Lives
- Knowledge is stored as Markdown 'atoms' plus tags, chunks and sqlite-vec embeddings in Atomic's local/server data directory; cloud users keep that database on Atomic's hosted service, and cloud-model calls send relevant text to the provider
- The Catch / Trade-off
- It covers capture, links, and cited chat, but its mobile capture, integrations, and overall polish are less mature than Saner.AI's managed workspace.
Replaces 1 paid app
Atomic FAQ
Common questions
Is Atomic free and open source?+
Atomic is an open-source tool licensed under MIT that runs on local or hosted. Capture, automatic connections and cited chat over your notes; bring the model yourself.
What paid software does Atomic replace?+
Atomic serves as a free replacement for 1 paid SaaS application: Saner.AI.
How do you install and set up Atomic?+
Installation: Download the macOS/Windows/Linux desktop release, use Atomic Cloud, or self-host its three-service Docker Compose stack. Setup notes: The desktop binary installs cleanly, but first-run setup cannot finish without an embedding and generation backend, either an API key or Ollama plus downloaded models
What is the catch or trade-off with Atomic?+
It covers capture, links, and cited chat, but its mobile capture, integrations, and overall polish are less mature than Saner.AI's managed workspace.