Self-hosted memex
Search model
Choose whether a self-hosted memex prepares notes for search by meaning on the server itself or on your own OpenAI key.
memex prepares new and edited notes so it can find them by topic as well as exact words. On a self-hosted memex, Settings › AI features › Search model chooses what prepares them.
| Search model | What it is |
|---|---|
| This server | nomic-embed-text-v1.5, running on the server itself, with no key and no cost. A new memex starts here. |
| OpenAI | text-embedding-3-large, on your own OpenAI key, which has to be added first. OpenAI bills you for it. |
Changing it prepares every note again. Until that finishes, search by topic covers only the notes already prepared; the section counts them. Without its key, an OpenAI search model matches exact words only, and the section says so. Exact-word search always works.
No daily limits
Neither section of AI features has a daily limit on a self-hosted memex: what the server does costs nothing, and what a provider does is billed to your own key. Descriptions and tags needs a key of your own from OpenAI, Anthropic or Google.
What leaves memex
With this server’s search model, no note text leaves the server to be prepared. With OpenAI’s, note text goes to OpenAI on your key. With descriptions on, the note’s text, title and your tag vocabulary go to the text provider you chose.