Oleafly
Oleafly is a free desktop workspace for technical documents such as papers, theses, and resumes.
What Oleafly is
Oleafly is a free desktop workspace for technical documents such as papers, theses, and resumes. It combines writing, PDF preview, references, and an optional AI assistant, and supports LaTeX, Typst, and Markdown projects. The app runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux. Users can connect hosted AI services, local Ollama models, compatible custom endpoints, or supported command-line agents. Research search covers alphaXiv and OpenAlex, and citations can be checked against Crossref. Local spelling and grammar tools focus on prose, not LaTeX commands or mathematics. Writing, local compilation, PDF review, and proofreading work offline without AI, after required packages, fonts, and tools are downloaded. Projects can be imported from folders or ZIPs and exported in several formats, including PDF and DOCX. The app is open source under AGPL-3.0, and its listed plan is free; paid AI providers may charge for usage. Collaboration currently uses Git, rather than real-time co-editing, comments, or managed sync.
Good
- Free desktop app for macOS, Windows, and Linux
- Supports LaTeX, Typst, and Markdown
- Writing and review can work offline
- Imports and exports multiple project formats
- Open source under AGPL-3.0
Watch out
- Real-time co-editing, comments, and managed sync are unavailable
- Paid AI providers may charge for usage
- Offline use requires tools and packages downloaded beforehand
Who it suits
Oleafly suits writers of technical documents who want LaTeX, Typst, or Markdown support and local offline work. It may also suit users who want to connect their own AI providers or collaborate through Git.
Verdict
Oleafly brings technical writing, PDF review, references, and optional AI connections into a free desktop workspace. Its current collaboration approach is Git-based, and AI use may involve provider charges.
Plans and prices
From Oleafly's own pricing page, checked 15 Oct 2026.
| Plan | Price | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | Desktop app · no Oleafly subscription · paid AI-provider usage may apply · local Ollama does not require paid API |
The facts
Each one read from Oleafly's own pages, with the date it was checked.
What it does
- AI options
- Users can connect hosted AI providers, local Ollama models, custom OpenAI-compatible endpoints, or supported CLI agents such as Claude Code and Codex.checked 30 Sep 2026
- AI providers
- Users can connect hosted model providers, any OpenAI-compatible endpoint or a local Ollama model.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Beta status
- The GitHub README labels Oleafly beta and says research tasks and CLI-agent support are beta features.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Citation search
- Citation Search queries arXiv, Semantic Scholar, Crossref, PubMed and OpenAlex and can save BibTeX entries.checked 15 Oct 2026
- CLI agents
- The editor supports command-line agents including Claude Code, Codex CLI, Gemini CLI, Pi, OpenCode, Cline, Cursor and others.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Collaboration limit
- Real-time co-editing, comments, and managed sync are planned but are not currently in the app; collaboration currently uses Git.checked 30 Sep 2026
- Collaboration server
- Teams can run Oleafly Server on their own Linux machine or cloud account for shared projects, accounts, roles and live collaboration.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Compilation engines
- Tectonic, Typst and Pandoc are bundled, while users can switch to latexmk with TeX Live, MacTeX, MiKTeX or TinyTeX.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Desktop limitation
- Intel Macs and Windows on ARM do not have native packages listed in the installation documentation.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Desktop requirements
- Native releases target macOS Apple Silicon, Windows x64, Linux x64 and Linux ARM64; Linux requires glibc 2.39 or newer.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Diagram tools
- A visual diagram canvas can produce editable TikZ, Typst or Mermaid source, with AI-assisted figure creation available.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Editor and preview
- The app combines source editing, document navigation and PDF preview, with source-to-PDF navigation through SyncTeX.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Import and export
- Users can import project folders and ZIPs, including exports from online LaTeX editors, and export PDF, DOCX, HTML, Markdown, and source ZIP files.checked 30 Sep 2026
- Import options
- Users can import ZIP archives, GitHub repositories, Word, Markdown, HTML, Typst, arXiv source bundles and PDFs reconstructed as editable LaTeX.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Independent-source documentation depth
- The repository README links guides, build-from-source instructions, server deployment, compilation-engine documentation and contribution paths.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Independent-source extensibility
- The repository documents a local MCP server, external CLI agents, hosted model endpoints and Ollama as extension paths.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Independent-source product description
- GitHub describes Oleafly as a local-first AI-assisted research workspace for scientific writing and publishing.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Independent-source repository metrics
- The GitHub organization page lists the main repository as TypeScript under AGPL-3.0 and displays 21 stars and 11 forks at the time captured.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Independent-source support channel
- The GitHub project invites bug reports, feature requests, code contributions, template contributions and documentation contributions.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Integrations
- The product supports GitHub push and pull, Git-based collaboration, Ollama, MCP tools, and connections to AI providers and installed CLI agents.checked 30 Sep 2026
- Licence
- The GitHub project identifies the desktop app as AGPL-3.0-or-later.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: collaboration release scope
- The GitHub README states that live co-editing and background device sync were not shipped in that release.checked 15 Oct 2026
The company
- Maker
- The project says it is built by Prajwal Murthy and contributors; its citation metadata names Prajwal S. Venkateshmurthy and the Oleafly contributors.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Maker location
- The Oleafly GitHub organization lists the organization location as the United States of America.checked 15 Oct 2026
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