Canto Notebook icon
Canto Notebook icon

Canto Notebook

Canto is a desktop notebook app powered entirely by local AI — everything runs on your device via native Metal GPU acceleration, so your notes never leave your machine.

Edit notes by talking with local AI chat agent.

Cost / License

  • Freemium (Pay once)
  • Proprietary

Application type

Platforms

  • Mac  Requires macOS 14+
Let AI organize your personal vault (set tags, move files, create folders, etc)
Do more than just note-taking. See how they connect, create jupyter style notebooks on the side.
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A powerful search bar that can even search by content.
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Features

Properties

  1.  Support for Themes
  2.  Privacy focused

Features

  1.  No Coding Required
  2.  Works Offline
  3.  Dark Mode
  4.  Text to Speech
  5.  Live Preview
  6.  Hierarchical Structure
  7.  File Tagging
  8.  Code Formatting
  9.  Ad-free
  10.  No registration required
  11.  End-to-End Encryption
  12.  Full-Text Search
  13.  Encrypted Backup
  14.  Spell Checking
  15.  Syntax Highlighting
  16.  No Tracking
  17. LaTeX icon  Support for LaTeX
  18.  Support for MarkDown
  19.  WYSIWYG Support
  20.  Notebook
  21.  AI Chatbot
  22.  AI-Powered
  23.  Note organization
  24.  AI Writing
  25.  PKM

Canto Notebook News & Activities

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Provides infinite text-based nested lists, real-time collaboration, tagging, file uploads, kanban boards, offline access, and seamless sync across devices.

 
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Canto Notebook information

  • Developed by

    LonelyDuck Software

  • Licensing

    Proprietary and Freemium product.

  • Pricing

    One time purchase (perpetual license) that costs $15 + free version with limited functionality.

  • Alternatives

    39 alternatives listed

  • Supported Languages

    • English
Canto Notebook was added to AlternativeTo by deokwons9004dev on and this page was last updated .
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What is Canto Notebook?

Canto is a desktop notebook app powered entirely by local AI — everything runs on your device via native Metal GPU acceleration, so your notes never leave your machine.

Unlike Notion AI or Obsidian Copilot, Canto requires no API keys, no subscriptions, and no internet connection after the initial model download. All AI inference runs locally via node-llama-cpp.

Key Features:

• Memory Links — A personal knowledge graph that semantically connects your notes using MiniLM embeddings. The AI reads your entire notebook locally and surfaces related ideas you've forgotten.

• Instant AI Autocomplete — GitHub Copilot-style inline ghost text suggestions as you type, with sub-200ms latency because there's no network roundtrip.

• AI Agent Panel — A full conversational agent with tool-calling for reading, editing, creating, and navigating your vault.

• Vault Chat — Chat with your entire knowledge base. AI queries across all your notes using RAG to answer questions about your own writing.

• Writing Style Profile — AI learns your writing voice from your notes and generates text that sounds like you.

• Rich Editor — WikiLinks [[Note]], collapsible toggle blocks, live Table of Contents, Mermaid diagrams, LaTeX math (KaTeX), Notion-style table controls, code execution (Jupyter-style notebooks with Python + TypeScript), file attachments, and slash commands.

• Version History — Auto-saves up to 50 versions per note or notebook with diff preview and restore.

• Encrypted Storage — AES-256 encrypted SQLite database. Your data stays private even on disk.

• Import / Export — Supports .canto (encrypted note), .cwsp (encrypted workspace), Markdown, HTML, Evernote ENEX, DOCX, and PDF.

• External AI Endpoints — Connect to Ollama, LMStudio, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint in addition to built-in local models.

Built-in AI Models (GGUF, run 100% locally): SmolLM3 3B, Qwen 3 4B/8B/14B/32B, GPT-OSS 20B, Qwen3 Coder 30B, Qwen 3 Next 80B.

Currently available for macOS (Apple Silicon). Windows and Linux support planned.

Official Links