Arivu
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Arivu Is Now Open Source

The full application is now available under the MIT license, with a dedicated self-hosted deployment, a documentation hub, and runtime configuration — so you can run Arivu on your own infrastructure.

February 20, 2026 •
Open Source Self-Hosting Documentation Infrastructure

Arivu is open source. The entire application — backend, frontend, browser extension — is now available on GitHub under the MIT license. You can read the code, run it on your own server, and contribute back.

This isn’t a stripped-down “community edition.” It’s the same app. Same AI-powered summaries, same Knowledge Graph, same search. The only difference is where it runs.

SELF-HOSTED DEPLOYMENT FRONTEND React + nginx Port 80 entry point BACKEND FastAPI + Gemini AI processing MONGODB Your data stays on your server REDIS Cache + sessions Rate limiting docker compose up -d One command. Four containers. Your own Arivu instance. MIT LICENSE Use, modify, distribute GITHUB ACTIONS Automated public sync DOCUMENTATION HUB 13 guides, API reference

Self-Hosted in One Command

We built a dedicated self-hosted deployment that’s separate from our production stack. It’s a clean four-container setup — frontend, backend, MongoDB, and Redis — with the frontend nginx as the single entry point on port 80. No marketing site, no extra services. Just the app.

Database ports are internal-only. Every container has resource limits and health checks. You clone the repo, copy .env.example, add your Gemini API key, and run docker compose up -d. That’s it.

What this means for you: Your bookmarks, your AI summaries, your knowledge graph — all on hardware you control. No data leaves your server unless you want it to.

Configure Everything From the UI

Self-hosting an AI-powered app usually means juggling environment variables and restarting services when you need to change an API key. We didn’t want that.

Arivu now has an Admin Settings panel where you can configure your Gemini API key, email service credentials, and X integration tokens at runtime. Changes take effect immediately — no restart required. The admin UI stores configuration in the database, and the backend resolves keys dynamically, falling back to environment variables if nothing is set in the UI.

We also added a SIGNUPS_ENABLED toggle. When you’re running your own instance, you decide whether the registration page is open to new users or locked down. The toggle controls the auth page — when disabled, the signup form disappears entirely.

What this means for you: Set up once, manage from the browser. No SSH sessions to swap API keys.

A Real Documentation Hub

The marketing site now has a proper documentation section with 13 guides covering everything from first-launch setup to the full API reference. It’s organized into categories — Getting Started, Deployment, Integrations, Features, and Reference — with a persistent sidebar for navigation and prev/next links between pages.

Guides include:

  • Getting Started: Clone, configure, save your first bookmark, explore features
  • Self-Hosting: Complete walkthrough for the four-container deployment
  • Environment Variables: Every .env option explained with production recommendations
  • API Reference: All 35+ endpoints with auth patterns, pagination, and error formats
  • Feature guides: Knowledge Graph, Collections, Analytics, Import/Export, Resurfacing

What this means for you: Whether you’re evaluating Arivu, self-hosting it, or building on top of the API, there’s a guide for you.

Open-Source Infrastructure

Going open source isn’t just pushing code to a public repo. We built a sync pipeline using GitHub Actions that automatically mirrors the private development repo to the public one on every push to main. Internal planning documents, marketing strategies, and production secrets are filtered out by guardrails before anything reaches the public repo.

The public repository includes community standards — a code of conduct, contribution guide, security policy, and MIT license. We also added CHANGELOG, ARCHITECTURE, and TROUBLESHOOTING guides so contributors can orient themselves quickly.

What this means for you: If you want to contribute, the path is clear. If you just want to read the code to understand how your data is handled, it’s all there.

Other Changes

  • Extension v1.2.0: Updated for compatibility with the latest backend changes
  • X integration restored: Server-side OAuth sync replaces the previous extension-based approach, with a feature flag to enable/disable it per instance
  • Cleaner environment templates: .env.example updated with all self-hosted configuration options

Arivu was built to be a tool you trust with your knowledge. Open-sourcing the code is the strongest trust signal we can offer — you don’t have to take our word for how your data is handled. You can read every line.