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Free AI tools for students
Free, open-source AI tools from GitHub that fit students, explained simply.
- Updated 18 Oct 2026
Why these picks
These free tools help you study, take notes and learn new skills without paying for another app. There is an AI tutor that builds quizzes and study plans from your own notes, a free NotebookLM alternative that answers with citations, offline voice typing for notes and essays, and a notes app where your files stay yours after you graduate. If you are learning to code, a few tools turn a big codebase into a clickable map you can explore, or let you run Linux on a Mac. There is even an offline library with Wikipedia and Khan Academy lessons that works with no internet. Every guide uses plain words and copy-paste steps.
12 free AI tools for students
Newest first. Each card opens the full guide.
net-merge: Combine Wi-Fi and Phone Internet, Free
net-merge is a free app to use two internet connections at once, like Wi-Fi plus a phone hotspot, on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Tolaria: A Free Offline Notes App You Fully Own
Tolaria is a free offline notes app for Mac, Windows and Linux.
OfficeCLI: Free AI for Word, Excel and PowerPoint Files
It lets AI helpers create, read and edit real Office files, with no Office install needed.
Archify: Free AI Diagram Generator for Claude and Codex
Describe an idea, plan or codebase to Claude Code or Codex and get an interactive diagram as one shareable web page.
Apple Container: Run Linux Containers on Mac for Free
Each one runs in a tiny virtual machine, tuned for Apple silicon and macOS 26.
Open Notebook: A Free NotebookLM Alternative You Own
Chat with your PDFs and videos, get cited answers, and turn notes into podcasts.
Understand Anything: Visualize Any Codebase for Free
Understand Anything is a free plugin that lets you visualize any codebase as a clickable map with plain-English notes, guided tours and a chat for questions.
Graphify Knowledge Graph: Free Project Map for AI Helpers
A graphify knowledge graph turns your code, docs, PDFs and videos into one clickable map, so your AI helper looks things up instead of guessing.
Karpathy autoresearch: AI That Runs Experiments Overnight
Karpathy autoresearch lets an AI agent tweak, train and test a tiny AI model on its own overnight, keeping only the changes that make it better.
Project NOMAD: Free Offline Knowledge Server
Project NOMAD is a free offline knowledge server with Wikipedia, medical guides, Khan Academy courses, maps and a local AI that work with no internet.
Handy: Free Offline Voice Typing App
Press a key, talk, and your words appear in any app on Mac, Windows or Linux.
DeepTutor: Free AI Tutor That Learns From Your Notes
DeepTutor is a free AI tutor that answers questions, makes quizzes and builds study plans from your own notes, books and videos.
Apps you can use
Free and paid AI apps that fit students. Prices come from each app's own pricing page, checked on the date shown.
ChatGPT
OpenAI
Chat with an AI that answers questions, writes, and helps with tasks
Free plan + paid from $8/month
Gemini
Google
Google's AI helper for questions, writing, pictures, and video
Free plan + paid from $4.99/month
Perplexity
Ask a question and get an answer with links to its sources
Free plan + paid from $17/month, billed yearly
NotebookLM
Google
Upload your notes and files, then ask questions or get a podcast summary
Free plan + paid from $4.99/month
Notion AI
Notion
AI inside Notion that writes, sums up notes, and finds answers
Free plan + paid from $20/user/month
Otter
Otter.ai
Records meetings, writes down what was said, and sums it up
Free plan + paid from $16.99/user/month
Hugging Face
Huge library of free AI models and datasets you can try and share
Free plan + paid from $9/month
Most starred and how they are licensed
Stars are a rough sign of how many people find a tool useful.
Other groups
The same guides, sorted by who they fit.
FAQ
Are these AI tools for students free?
All 12 tools here are open source on GitHub. By license: MIT (6), Apache-2.0 (5), AGPL-3.0 (1). A tool can be free while an AI service it connects to is not, so check the price row in each guide's at-a-glance table.
Which of these tools has the most GitHub stars?
Graphify Knowledge Graph, with 126.8K stars when our guide last checked (2026-10-16).
Do they work on Mac, Windows and Linux?
9 of the 12 guides that list platforms say Mac, Windows and Linux. Each guide's at-a-glance table names the platforms for that tool.
Which guide for students is the newest?
net-merge: Combine Wi-Fi and Phone Internet, Free (2026), published 2026-10-18.