# AI Second Brain — TagSpaces, the Open-Source Obsidian Alternative

> Build an AI-powered second brain on plain files. TagSpaces organizes notes, PDFs, emails, and images with tags, local AI chat, and full-text search. Open-source, offline-first, GDPR-native — an Obsidian alternative built in Munich.

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{/* ──── Hero ──── */}

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  {"Build your AI-powered second brain"}
  
    Your notes, files, and AI context — organized in plain files, searchable with tags, and accessible offline. No cloud
    lock-in, no proprietary format, no subscription required.
  
  
    <Link className="button button--primary button--lg" to="/downloads/">
      {"Start building for free"}
    </Link>
    <Link className="button button--outline button--primary button--lg" to="/demo/">
      {"Try the live demo"}
    </Link>
  
  
    {"Free & open source · Works offline · All file types supported"}
  
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      <FullScreenImage
        src="/content/v6/tagspaces-v6.11-linksgraph.avif"
        caption="The FolderViz Links Graph — your second brain visualized as a network of connected files"
        showCaption
      />
    
    
      <FullScreenImage
        src="/content/v6/tagspaces-v6.11-linksgraph-dark.avif"
        caption="The FolderViz Links Graph — your second brain visualized as a network of connected files"
        showCaption
      />
    
  

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{/* ──── Why a file-based second brain ──── */}

  {"Why a file-based second brain?"}
  
    Most second-brain tools only handle notes. But your knowledge lives in PDFs, images, bookmarks, emails, voice memos,
    and code — not just Markdown files.
  
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  <CardGrid
    items={[
      {
        title: "Plain files = forever",
        text: "Markdown, PDF, HTML, images, audio — all readable by any app, on any OS, for decades. No proprietary database, no export headaches.",
      },
      {
        title: "AI-native",
        text: "Built-in Ollama chat per folder — ask questions, summarize documents, describe images. Plus tscmd CLI for agent workflows. All free, all local.",
      },
      {
        title: "Beyond notes",
        text: "Unlike note-only tools, TagSpaces treats PDFs, images, emails, contacts, bookmarks, and 50+ file types as first-class knowledge — all tagged, searchable, and previewable.",
      },
    ]}
  />

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{/* ──── How it works ──── */}

  {"How it works"}
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  <CardGrid
    colSize={4}
    items={[
      {
        title: "1. Collect",
        text: "Create Markdown notes, clip web pages with the browser extension, save PDFs and emails — all into local folders you control.",
        link: "/products/webclipper/",
      },
      {
        title: "2. Organize",
        text: "Tag every file with color-coded tags. Link related files with standard Markdown links. Build a folder structure that mirrors how you think.",
        link: "https://docs.tagspaces.org/tagging/",
      },
      {
        title: "3. Search",
        text: "Full-text search across all file types. Filter by tags, date, file type, or size. Three search modes: fuzzy, strict, and semi-strict.",
        link: "https://docs.tagspaces.org/search/",
      },
      {
        title: "4. AI-enhance",
        text: "Chat with local AI about your files. Auto-tag documents, summarize PDFs, describe images — all processing stays on your machine.",
        link: "https://docs.tagspaces.org/ai/",
      },
      {
        title: "5. Browse",
        text: "Switch perspectives: grid for files, gallery for photos, kanban for tasks, calendar for dates, map for locations, mind map for structure.",
        link: "/products/pro/",
      },
      {
        title: "6. Automate",
        text: "Use the tscmd CLI to tag, describe, index, search, and generate thumbnails from the terminal — with a query language (+tag / -tag / |tag / free-text) AI agents can call directly.",
        link: "/blog/tagspaces-command-line-tool/",
      },
    ]}
  />

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{/* ──── What makes TagSpaces different ──── */}

  {"What makes TagSpaces different"}
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  <CardGrid
    colSize={6}
    items={[
      {
        title: "50+ file formats as first-class knowledge",
        text: "PDFs, images, audio, video, emails, contacts, spreadsheets, 3D models, source code — all with built-in viewers, tagging, and search. Not just Markdown.",
      },
      {
        title: "Free local AI — no subscription",
        text: "Built-in Ollama chat in every folder. Summarize documents, describe images, auto-tag files — fully offline, fully private. No $20/month API cost.",
      },
      {
        title: "6 visual perspectives",
        text: "View any folder as a grid, photo gallery, kanban board, calendar, interactive map, or mind map. One click to switch. Each folder can have its own default view.",
      },
      {
        title: "CLI for automation and AI agents",
        text: "tscmd lets you tag, describe, index, and generate thumbnails from the terminal. AI agents can call it to organize files programmatically.",
      },
    ]}
  />
  
    {
      "TagSpaces works alongside other PKM tools like Obsidian or Joplin — they read the same plain files from the same folders."
    }
  
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      <FullScreenImage src="/content/pro/gallery.avif" caption="Gallery perspective" showCaption />
    
    
      <FullScreenImage src="/content/pro/kanban.avif" caption="Kanban perspective" showCaption />
    
    
      <FullScreenImage src="/content/pro/calendar.avif" caption="Calendar perspective" showCaption />
    
    
      <FullScreenImage src="/content/pro/mapique.avif" caption="Mapique perspective" showCaption />
    
  

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{/* ──── Works with Claude Code ──── */}

  {"Works with Claude Code and AI agents"}
  
    TagSpaces is designed to complement AI coding assistants, not compete with them. Here's how they work together.
  
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  <CardGrid
    items={[
      {
        title: "Browse AI context",
        text: "Point TagSpaces at your .claude/ folder. Browse memory files, plans, and settings with live previews — see what your AI remembers.",
        link: "/blog/tagspaces-pkm-ai-context/",
      },
      {
        title: "Tag decisions",
        text: "Mark critical AI-generated files as 'decision', 'feedback', or 'stale'. Search across all projects to find what matters before your next session.",
      },
      {
        title: "Automate with tscmd",
        text: "Let Claude Code call tscmd to tag files, write descriptions, generate thumbnails, and build search indexes — all from the terminal.",
        link: "/blog/tagspaces-command-line-tool/",
      },
    ]}
  />
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  <FullScreenImage
    src="/content/blog/dot-claude-folder-viz.avif"
    caption="Browsing Claude Code's .claude/ context folder in TagSpaces"
    showCaption
  />

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{/* ──── Built for ownership ──── */}

  {"Built for ownership"}
  
    A second brain you'll trust for a decade needs more than features. It needs the right defaults.
  
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  <CardGrid
    colSize={4}
    items={[
      {
        title: "Made in Munich, Germany",
        text: "Independent company since 2014. No VC pressure, no roadmap pivot to a cloud-only future. The plain-files philosophy is structural, not a phase.",
      },
      {
        title: "Your data stays local",
        text: "No telemetry. No account. No background sync. Files only leave your machine when you explicitly choose to sync them — to your own storage, your way.",
      },
      {
        title: "GDPR-native by design",
        text: "Local-first, offline by default, no third-party processors in the core products. Compliance is what falls out when you start from these defaults — not a bolted-on retrofit.",
      },
    ]}
  />

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{/* ──── Getting started ──── */}

  {"Get started in 5 minutes"}
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1. **Download** <Link to="/downloads/">TagSpaces Lite</Link> (free, open source)
2. **Create a folder** for your second brain — `~/second-brain/` or wherever you like
3. **Start collecting** — notes, PDFs, web clips, bookmarks, images
4. **Tag by topic** — `research`, `project-x`, `read-later`, `decision`
5. **Optional:** Install <Link to="https://docs.tagspaces.org/ai/">Ollama</Link> for local AI chat, <Link to="/blog/tagspaces-command-line-tool/">tscmd</Link> for CLI automation

  

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{/* ──── Comparison (collapsed) ──── */}

  <details style={{ border: "1px solid var(--ifm-color-emphasis-200)", borderRadius: 10, padding: "16px 20px" }}>
    <summary style={{ cursor: "pointer", fontWeight: 600, fontSize: "1.1rem", listStyle: "none" }}>
      {"How TagSpaces compares to Obsidian for second brains ▸"}
    </summary>
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      Obsidian is excellent at what it's built for: a writing-first, Markdown-native note editor with a strong plugin community. TagSpaces takes a different starting point — the file manager — so the comparison isn't apples-to-apples. Both are useful, often together.
    

| Feature               | TagSpaces                                                                                                           | Obsidian                                                                                 |
| --------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| File types            | All formats first-class — PDFs, images, emails, audio, contacts, 50+ types                                          | Markdown first-class; others are "attachments"                                           |
| Linking between notes | Relative paths + `ts://` internal links, incoming-links panel, per-file links graph                                 | `[[wiki-link]]` syntax with autocomplete + backlinks panel                               |
| Graph view            | Links Graph + Tags Graph (Pro) — spans all file types                                                               | Graph view (Markdown only)                                                               |
| Tagging               | Color-coded, sidecar JSON or filename-based                                                                         | YAML frontmatter                                                                         |
| Built-in AI           | Local Ollama chat per folder — free, offline                                                                        | Plugin-based or external (Claude Code ~€20/mo)                                           |
| CLI / scripting       | `tscmd` (first-party, MIT) — tag, describe, indexer, **search** with `+tag / -tag / \|tag / free-text` query syntax | Community CLIs such as `obsidian-cli`; plus Claude Code reading the vault via filesystem |
| Visual perspectives   | Grid, gallery, kanban, calendar, map, mind map, FolderViz                                                           | Graph view + community plugins                                                           |
| Web clipper           | Chrome / Firefox / Edge — HTML, MD, screenshots, bookmarks; tag on capture                                          | Chrome / Edge / Safari / Firefox - MD files + tag on capture                             |
| Mobile                | Android                                                                                                             | iOS + Android (paid sync)                                                                |
| Open source           | AGPL-3.0 core (TagSpaces Lite)                                                                                      | Proprietary app, plain Markdown format                                                   |
| Plugin community      | Extension API, smaller ecosystem                                                                                    | Large community, 1,000+ plugins                                                          |
| Telemetry             | None                                                                                                                | None (core)                                                                              |
| Price                 | Free (Lite); one-time or yearly Pro                                                                                 | Free app; paid Sync + Publish add-ons                                                    |

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**Where Obsidian still wins.** `[[wiki-link]]` autocomplete is faster for writing-heavy workflows. The plugin ecosystem is larger and more mature. The community around linked-thinking and Zettelkasten is concentrated there.

**Where TagSpaces extends what Obsidian does.** TagSpaces' link detection, graph views, and search all work across PDFs, images, emails, and 50+ other file types — the formats Obsidian treats as second-class attachments. The web clipper saves directly with tags applied at capture, and the `tscmd` CLI gives an AI agent a real query interface into the whole library.

**The honest recommendation: use both.** They read the same plain files from the same folders. Obsidian as a writing-first IDE for the wiki layer, TagSpaces as the manager for everything else.

  </details>

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{/* ──── Bottom CTA ──── */}

  {"Your knowledge deserves better than a single app"}
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  <Link className="button button--primary button--lg" to="/downloads/">
    {"Download TagSpaces for free"}
  </Link>
  
    <Link to="/demo/">{"Try the live demo"}</Link>
    {" · "}
    <Link to="/blog/tagspaces-pkm-ai-context/">{"Read: PKM for AI context"}</Link>
    {" · "}
    <Link to="/products/pro/">{"Explore Pro features"}</Link>
  

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