Rowboat
Rowboat is a desktop AI colleague with memory. Officially, it will refine your work into a knowledge graph and execute tasks locally, with your emails, notes and memories all stored on your device.
Updated: 2026-10-26
What is Rowboat?
The slogan of the official Rowboat website is "Your AI coworker, with memory", and it describes itself as "a desktop app that turns your work into a living knowledge graph and uses it to accomplish tasks on your computer". The official website repeatedly emphasizes localization: emails, notes and memories are all stored on your own machine, notes exist locally in Markdown format, and it comes with a separate local browser. It is open-source on GitHub, and downloads are also available from the GitHub release page.
Who is it for?
- Knowledge workers who want AI to truly understand their historical context instead of starting from scratch every time.
- Someone whose emails, meetings and notes are scattered in different places and who needs a unified entry to connect them all.
- Developers who want to run coding AI agents locally without uploading their codebases to the cloud.
- Privacy-sensitive users who require data localization and do not want their data to leave their own devices.
Key features
6Brain (Knowledge Base)
The official description is "Brain is your knowledge base — notes, files, and everything Rowboat learns for you, all connected and searchable".
Spaces (Team Spaces)
The official website states that you can ask questions to a Space, and Rowboat will collect context from Brain, emails, meetings, and local notes, then bring the answers back to the team; Spaces also exposes an MCP server for your own agents to call.
Apps (Mini Apps)
Officially described as small personal apps built directly within Rowboat, which can use the same tools and integrations as Rowboat and can also be shared with others.
Code (Coding Agent)
Officially, you can run a coding agent on a project, point it to a folder, and drive it through conversations.
Background agents
Persistent intelligent agents triggered by schedules or events. According to the official website, they can keep the Brain updated and handle periodic tasks, and can also be paused individually.
Email and Calendar Management
It can read and categorize your inbox locally. The official website states that it can summarize conversations, tag them, and help you draft replies.
How to use Rowboat
- Bring your own model: The official website states that you can use the model provided by Rowboat, or connect your own model, ChatGPT subscription, Claude Code or Codex.
- It is most cost-effective to connect based on your existing subscription first.
- To make it "remember", first feed your existing notes and files to the Brain.
- otherwise, the knowledge graph will be empty for the first few weeks, and the effect will be compromised.
- It needs to run tools and a browser locally.
- for first-time use, it is recommended to try it on small projects first to confirm that the permission scope and file access directory meet your expectations.
- For team use, note that Spaces exposes an MCP server to the outside world.
- Before enabling it, confirm which agents can connect.
- The official website does not disclose a complete list of pricing and supported systems.
- Before downloading, first check the operating system version you are using on the GitHub release page.
- the rules may be adjusted, so verify again before official use.
Traffic & popularity
Data month Sep 2026
Rowboat receives about 116.7K visits per month and ranks #261,113 worldwide.
Monthly visits
12 monthsTraffic sources
- Direct34.5%
- Social28.8%
- Search21.4%
- Referrals12.5%
- Mail1.6%
- Other1.2%
Top countries
- United States24.7%
- Japan9.0%
- France8.5%
- Czech Republic8.1%
- India6.7%
Estimated from third-party traffic data.
Similar tools
EasyClawA zero-configuration desktop AI agent based on OpenClaw, supporting Mac and Windows, integrating mainstream large models, capable of driving local file and browser operations in WeChat and Feishu.
WorkAnyA locally running desktop AI Agent, according to its official website, can organize files, generate websites, documents, spreadsheets and presentations with natural language. It supports real-time preview, sandbox execution and MCP expansion.
UnderdogUnderdog is a local personal AI as described on its official website: it handles emails, calendars, meeting notes, dictation and daily tasks. The official website states that its intelligence and memory stay on the device, it connects directly to email service providers, memories can be viewed, edited or deleted, and it offers a fully offline mode.
TarsTars is a conversational AI agent platform for enterprises, offering Agent Builder and pre-built agents such as customer service and customer acquisition ones. It is implemented across industries like finance, healthcare, and retail, and is equipped with knowledge bases and analysis tools.
OsaurusOsaurus is an open-source client for running AI agents natively. It works with local models like Raptor, is private by default and can run offline, offering a stable Mac version and a public beta version for Windows; the agent can read documents and notes in local folders, retain cross-session memory, and ask for confirmation before modifying files.
OpenComputerOpenComputer is a high-performance infrastructure for coding agents as described on the official website: the agents run on its cloud and can be mentioned in chat tools or called via APIs; the official website states that responses are returned in a streaming manner, the reading, writing and execution processes are visible, and interface changes come with screenshots and previews.