Otter.ai Alternatives: AI Note Takers Compared
October 1, 2026
The best Otter.ai alternatives split into three groups, and picking the right group matters more than picking the right brand. Bot notetakers join your call as a participant. Botless recorders capture audio from your own device. Built-in AI notes come with Zoom, Teams or Google Meet, and you may already pay for them.
The short version:
- Most generous free plan: Fathom, which offers unlimited recordings and transcriptions for free.
- More languages than Otter: Fireflies, Fathom, tl;dv, Notta or Avoma. Otter transcribes six.
- No bot in the meeting: Granola, or tl;dv in its botless mode, or Fathom's bot-free beta if you're on a Mac.
- Sales teams: Avoma, which adds call scoring and deal tracking.
- Already on Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or a paid Zoom plan: check the built-in notes before buying anything.
First, what you'd be replacing. Otter's meeting agent joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet to transcribe live, summarise and pull out action items. Its desktop app records on Mac or Windows without a bot, Otter AI Chat answers questions across your meetings, and an Otter MCP server lets ChatGPT and Claude read your meeting history. Otter's help centre lists six transcription languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese (Simplified).
Quick comparison
| Tool | How it captures | Languages | Free option | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Otter.ai | Bot or desktop app | 6 | Yes, capped minutes | Live transcripts, searchable archive |
| Fireflies | Bot, apps, file upload | 100+ | Yes | Integrations and many languages |
| Fathom | Bot, or bot-free (Mac-only beta) | 38 | Unlimited recordings | Individuals who want free and simple |
| tl;dv | Bot or no bot | 30+ | Yes | EU teams, CRM notes |
| Granola | Device audio, no bot | Not listed on site | Yes | Private notes you write yourself |
| Read AI | Bot | Not listed on site | 5 meetings a month | Meeting analytics, email summaries |
| Avoma | Bot | 75+ | View-only seats | Sales and customer success |
| Notta | Bot, app, extension | 58 | 120 minutes a month | Bilingual meetings and translation |
Otter vs Fireflies
This is the comparison most people searching for an Otter alternative are really making.
Fireflies works by inviting its bot, Fred, to your meetings, or letting it auto-join from your calendar. It claims transcription in 100+ languages and 200+ integrations, from Salesforce and HubSpot to Asana and Slack. There's a free plan, and paid plans are charged per seat.
| Otter.ai | Fireflies | |
|---|---|---|
| Transcription languages | 6 | 100+ |
| Ways to capture | Bot, Mac and Windows desktop app, Chrome extension | Bot, Chrome extension for Meet, desktop and mobile apps, file upload |
| AI on top | Otter AI Chat, MCP server for ChatGPT and Claude | Summaries, plus 200+ integrations and an API |
| Strongest at | Live transcript you can follow during the call | Pushing notes into the rest of your stack |
Pick Fireflies if your meetings aren't all in English or your notes need to land in a CRM. Stay with Otter if you rely on the live transcript, or you want a botless desktop recorder from the same vendor.
Free Otter.ai alternatives
Otter has a free Basic plan, but it's tight. Per Otter's pricing page, it allows 300 transcription minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation, and 3 file imports in total. A single long meeting runs into that 30-minute cap.
Fathom
Fathom is the usual answer to "free Otter alternative." Its free plan includes unlimited recordings and transcriptions, instant AI call summaries, clips, and search across calls. It works with Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, and lets you choose between a bot and bot-free capture. Bot-free capture is still in beta and currently Mac-only, with Windows support listed as coming soon.
- Beats Otter at: the free plan, by a wide margin. Its help centre also lists 38 transcription languages to Otter's six.
- Weaker at: botless capture, which is a Mac-only beta for now. Windows users get the bot. Test it on your own meetings first.
tl;dv
tl;dv has a Free Forever plan and records Google Meet, Zoom and Teams. It transcribes in 30+ languages and dialects, and it says data is hosted and stored in the EU and won't be used to train AI.
- Beats Otter at: languages and an EU data story, which matters for European teams.
- For: teams that want call notes to land in a CRM without a manual copy-paste.
Notta
Notta transcribes 58 languages and can transcribe two languages at once, with real-time translation and side-by-side bilingual transcripts. New users get 120 free minutes a month.
- Beats Otter at: mixed-language meetings. Otter transcribes one language at a time.
Botless AI note takers
Some people hate the bot. Clients notice it, it can turn up in meetings you didn't mean to record, and it's one more name in the participant list. If that's behind your search, our guide to removing Read AI from Teams shows how sticky an auto-joining bot can get.
Granola
Granola uses your computer's audio, so no bot joins the call. It works with Zoom, Google Meet, Teams and any other meeting app, on Mac, Windows, iOS and Android. Its approach is different from Otter's: you jot down notes during the meeting, and Granola uses the meeting context to fill them out.
- Beats Otter at: notes that sound like yours, not a generic summary.
- Weaker at: a shared, searchable archive for the whole team. It's built around your notes, not the company's records.
- Free plan: unlimited meeting notes. Paying unlocks notes older than 30 days.
Otter's own desktop app also records without a bot, so "botless" alone isn't a reason to leave Otter.
AI meeting notes for teams and sales
Read AI
Read AI does meeting notes for Google Meet, Teams and Zoom, then goes further: it scores engagement with a speaker coach and summarises email and messages as well as meetings. The free plan covers 5 meetings a month. If the engagement scores are the part you're unsure about, see our breakdown of Read Meeting Navigator.
Avoma
Avoma is built for revenue teams. Next to the meeting assistant, it has a scheduler and lead router, call scoring and coaching, and deal risk alerts. It transcribes 75+ languages and gives free view-only seats to collaborators.
- Beats Otter at: everything that happens after a sales call.
- Overkill for: anyone who just wants meeting notes.
One listing you'll still see in older roundups is Sembly. Its site now describes it as AI deliverable production for professional services, turning client briefs into decks and documents, so it's no longer a like-for-like notetaker.
The AI notes already built into Zoom, Teams and Meet
Before you add another subscription, check what your meeting platform already does.
| Platform | Built-in feature | What you need |
|---|---|---|
| Zoom | Meeting summary, built into Zoom Workplace | Included with eligible paid plans; the free plan gets summaries for 3 hosted meetings a month |
| Microsoft Teams | Intelligent recap: AI notes and tasks | Teams Premium or a Microsoft Copilot licence, and the meeting must be transcribed |
| Google Meet | "Take notes for me", saved to Google Docs | An eligible Google Workspace edition or Google AI plan |
A few details that trip people up:
- Zoom retired the "AI Companion" name in June 2026. Its announcement says meeting summaries and transcription are now simply built into Zoom Workplace, and ZoomMate is a separate, agentic add-on.
- Teams' recap needs the meeting to be at least transcribed, per Microsoft's recap guide. No transcript, no AI notes.
- Google Meet's Take notes for me supports eight languages, one at a time, and saves the notes to the organiser's Drive.
The trade-off is lock-in. Built-in notes only cover meetings on that platform, so if you take calls on all three, a third-party tool is still simpler.
Recording consent: bots vs botless
The capture method changes who's responsible for telling people.
- A bot is visible. It shows up in the participant list, so everyone can see something is recording.
- Google Meet tells everyone. When Take notes for me is on, participants are notified and see a pencil icon.
- Botless tools are invisible by design. Nobody else on the call sees anything, so telling them is on you.
That matters legally. Some US states and many countries require every party's consent to record a conversation. Tell people at the start that you're taking AI notes, and stop if anyone objects. This isn't legal advice: if you record clients or candidates regularly, check the rules where you and they are. Our AI notes maker guide goes deeper on consent and on getting minutes people will actually use.
How to choose
- Start with what you pay for. If your company has Teams Premium, Microsoft Copilot, an eligible Workspace edition or a paid Zoom plan, try the built-in notes first.
- Count your languages. Anything beyond Otter's six points to Fireflies, Fathom, Notta, tl;dv or Avoma.
- Decide on the bot. If clients dislike it, go Granola, tl;dv in botless mode, or Fathom's bot-free beta if everyone involved is on a Mac.
- Check the free limits against one real week of meetings, not a demo call.
And give Otter its due: if you want a live transcript you can follow during the call, plus a searchable archive and a botless desktop recorder, it's still one of the most complete options.
Where Taku fits
Notetakers finish their job when the summary lands. What you do with it next — turning notes into a weekly report, a CRM update or a draft follow-up — is usually still a copy-paste job. Taku is an AI-native desktop workspace where you find an AI app or workflow someone already built for that step, mirror it into your own workspace, run it, and remix it, without setting up repos, dependencies or API keys yourself. It doesn't replace your notetaker. Taku is in Beta, and the Mac app is available now; there's also an experimental, unsigned Windows build for Windows 10 and 11.
FAQ
What is the best free Otter.ai alternative?
Fathom, for most people: its free plan includes unlimited recordings and transcriptions with AI summaries. Granola is the best free pick if you'd rather write your own notes with no bot in the call.
Is Fireflies better than Otter?
It's better for multilingual meetings and integrations: Fireflies claims 100+ languages to Otter's six, and 200+ integrations. Otter is stronger if you rely on the live transcript or want a botless desktop recorder.
Which AI note taker works with Zoom and Teams?
Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, tl;dv, Read AI and Granola all work with both. Zoom and Teams also have their own built-in AI notes, though Teams' version needs Teams Premium or a Microsoft Copilot licence.
Can I take AI meeting notes without a bot joining the call?
Yes. Granola and Otter's desktop app capture audio from your computer, tl;dv offers a botless mode, and Fathom offers a bot-free beta on Mac only. Without a bot, nobody is notified automatically, so tell participants yourself.
What's the best meeting transcription software for non-English meetings?
Notta, for mixed-language meetings, since it can transcribe two languages at once. Fireflies and Avoma cover the most languages overall. If you also produce audio and need a synthetic voice, our ElevenLabs alternatives guide covers that side.