BYOAIK (Bring Your Own AI Key) is a directory of AI tools that run on your own API key.

Copilot for Obsidian

Open-source AI assistant plugin for Obsidian with chat, vault Q&A, and agentic workflows over your notes.

Website Source code

Category:
Writing Tools
Maintenance:
Actively developed (last commit today)
Pricing:
Open Source
Open source:
Yes (AGPL-3.0)
Self-hostable:
Yes
Local-first:
Yes
Platforms:
Desktop, Mobile, Self-hosted, Docker
AI providers (bring your own key):
OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Cohere, Groq, OpenRouter, Perplexity, Ollama, Custom / OpenAI-compatible
API key storage:
Stored locally on device
Key risk level:
LOW
Trust score:
85/100

Copilot for Obsidian (logancyang/obsidian-copilot) is an open-source community plugin that embeds an AI assistant inside the Obsidian note-taking app. It provides AI chat, vault-wide semantic search and Q&A over your notes, web/YouTube context, and agentic content generation, with a stated philosophy of local data control and no provider lock-in. The free plugin is bring-your-own-key: users paste their own API keys for OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Cohere, Groq, or OpenRouter, point at any OpenAI-compatible endpoint via a custom Base URL (e.g. Perplexity), or run fully local via Ollama or LM Studio. An optional one-time "Copilot Plus" license adds a built-in (managed) chat model and embeddings for users who do not want to supply their own keys. Licensed AGPL-3.0, ~7.3k GitHub stars, written in TypeScript, actively maintained (latest release v3.3.3, May 2026).

Why this trust score (85/100)

Trust measures how the tool treats your API key and how much of that has been verified. It contains no popularity signal.

  • Key Safety 23/25: The key is held on your own device.
  • Request Routing 17/20: Requests go straight from you to the AI provider.
  • Transparency 20/20: Source is public under AGPL-3.0, so anyone can check how the key is handled.
  • Privacy 14/15: Local-first: it works without sending your data anywhere. Can be self-hosted, so the data path stays inside infrastructure you control.
  • Maintenance 10/10: Actively developed: commits within the last three months.
  • Verification Confidence 1/10: Compiled from public documentation by an AI-assisted pass, not independently confirmed.

What was checked

Verification tier RESEARCH_ASSISTED, derived from the evidence below and not set by hand.

  • [REPORTED · RESEARCH] This listing was compiled by an AI-assisted research pass over the tool's public website, README and documentation. No person independently confirmed it.
  • [STRONG · SOURCE_SCAN] Supports a local model backend, so it can run with no cloud provider key at all. source
  • [CONFIRMED · SOURCE_SCAN] Most recent commit 2026-08-15, about 0 month(s) ago. source

How your API key is handled

Your API key is stored locally on your device. Requests are sent directly to the AI provider. Because it can be self-hosted, your key never has to touch a third-party backend.

Setup

Open settings, paste your provider API key, choose a model, and start. The key stays on your device.