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Lilo

a self-hosted, open-source intelligent personal OS

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Hey everyone, I’ve been working on Lilo for the last few months. In short, it’s an intelligent personal OS. Lilo = your apps + your AI assistant + your files + your memories.For a visual intro, here’s a YouTube video demonstrating the features and use cases: https://youtu.be/Jz0l_izoA1wI started this project because I wanted a few small AI-powered apps for myself — a bookmarks tool, a calorie tracker, a TODO list — but deploying N separate apps with N deployments, URLs, and auth configs is too much effort for a single-user use case. So I built one container that holds all the apps, runs them at the same URL, and lets the agent inside modify them. If I want to change my bookmarks app, I don't open Claude Code and push to a repo — I tell the agent, and it edits the HTML directly. Not great for a large SaaS with lots of users but works great for a single-user app.Each app is just an HTML file but with access to a filesystem API, full network access and full agentic capabilities.Since then, Lilo has grown to also support a filesystem/workspace that can hold more than just apps. You can upload PDFs or screenshots and have the AI analyze and organize them for you. The AI also remembers key details about you in a “LLM wiki” style tree of markdown files. It’s a full-on personal assistant.Inspired by OpenClaw, I added support for additional channels like WhatsApp, email, and Telegram. Now I take a photo of my lunch, text it to Lilo, and the calorie tracker updates. If I didn't eat the pizza crust, I text "didn’t eat the crust" and it adjusts the entry. Cal AI couldn't do that. And unlike say a calorie tracker WhatsApp bot, I also have a nice visual interface to look at my meals.This combo of personal assistant + personal apps is very powerful. And very flexible. The UI is nice for glancing at data. The chat is nice for operations the UI doesn't cover. I don't have to build a search into every app, I can just ask the agent.Lilo is open source and alpha software. Bring your own keys. The setup is not the easiest (a lot of API keys and you need to self host). All security advisories for LLM apps with network access apply here. But at the start, since there is no personal data, no data exfiltration is possible but credential exfiltration certainly is. Your entire workspace can be backed up and versioned using a git repo so the data is durable.I’d love to hear feedback, and hope people find this as useful as I have.

HN · launched Apr 24, 2026 · 7 upvotes (top 61%) · 0 views

Niche: ai personal assistant software · 354 launches, 21 in the last 7 days ▼ -30% · Explore this niche →

Category and tags

  • Horizontal
  • Agent / copilot
  • Prosumer
  • AI-native
  • Hobby / open-source project

Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗

Could you build this?

Yes Lilo is a web-based dashboard and personal assistant aggregator integrating local files, standard AI API calls, and lightweight app widgets.

Discussion

4 comments analyzed.

Concerns raised: Name conflicts with existing Linux bootloader (LILO) from 1992, Lack of prior art/naming research in CS education

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one : 136 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #83 of 137 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 177 days after the earliest competitor.

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