Novel
Steven Tey · Writing
Novel is a free, open-source Notion-style WYSIWYG editor with AI autocompletions, built for developers and writers who want smart writing inside their own app.
About Novel
What Is Novel
Novel is a headless, Notion-style rich text editor that adds AI-powered autocompletions to your writing. It comes from Steven Tey and ships as an open-source project, so you can self-host it, restyle it, or drop it into a product you're already building.
The editor leans on Tiptap for the text engine and calls OpenAI for the AI bits. You type, and Novel offers to finish your sentence or expand a thought. If you don't like the suggestion, you keep typing and it disappears. That's the whole idea: help that stays out of the way. You can reach the live editor at novel.sh, or clone the project and run your own copy.
The catch is that Novel isn't a finished app you sign up for. It's a component and a starter kit. You'll need your own OpenAI API key and a place to run it, which means a little setup work before you write a single word. Skip that and nothing happens. Worth it? Only if you like owning your tools.
Getting Started
- Clone the Novel repository from GitHub or deploy it to Vercel with the one-click button.
- Grab an OpenAI API key and generate a Vercel Blob read/write token for image uploads.
- Add both values as environment variables in your project.
- Run the install and dev commands, then open the local URL to start writing.
Product Information
A quick look at Novel's pricing, supported platforms, and performance.
Best for
The users, tasks, and scenarios where this tool fits best.
Users
- Developers
- Indie hackers building writing tools
- Content teams with a dev on staff
Tasks
- Adding inline AI suggestions to a note-taking or docs app
- Building a lightweight Notion clone
- Prototyping an AI writing feature
Scenarios
- A startup wants an internal writing tool but won't pay per-seat SaaS pricing
- A developer needs a component they can restyle with Tailwind
- A writer who wants local control over drafts
Key features
AI-Powered Autocompletions
As you type, Novel sends your text to OpenAI and offers a continuation you can accept or ignore. It's the core hook, and it works best for drafting paragraphs and expanding bullet points. You supply the API key, so the model cost is yours to manage. Type. Accept. Keep going.
Notion-Style Editing
The editor borrows Notion's feel: slash commands, a floating bubble menu, and drag handles that let you move blocks around. Anyone who's used Notion will pick it up without a tutorial. It keeps the learning curve near zero.
Headless and Customizable
Novel ships as components, not a locked-down product. You control the layout, the styling, and which pieces you include. TailwindCSS and RadixUI are already in the stack, so restyling doesn't fight the framework.
Open-Source under Apache-2.0
This open-source text editor ships its full codebase under Apache-2.0. You can read it, fork it, and put it in commercial work without paying a license fee. That matters if you're building a product and don't want vendor lock-in.
Framework Support Beyond React
Novel is built for React first, but the community maintains packages for Svelte and Vue. There's also a VS Code extension, so you can try the autocomplete without a full deployment.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Free and open-source, so there's no subscription and no per-seat cost.
- AI autocompletion works inside your own app, not a separate tab.
- Notion-style editing feels familiar right away.
- You can restyle it fully with TailwindCSS.
Cons
- No hosted version to sign up for, so you need to deploy and configure it yourself, which rules out non-technical users.
- Autocomplete depends on your own OpenAI API key, so costs scale with how much you write.
- Setup assumes comfort with React, environment variables, and a hosting platform.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Novel is open-source under the Apache-2.0 license, so there's no fee to use or modify it, and your only real recurring cost is the OpenAI API usage that sits behind the autocompletions you generate.
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