Fathom
Productivity & Notes
A free meeting recorder that joins your calls and writes the summary for you.
Otter.ai
Live transcripts for meetings, lectures and in-person conversations on your phone.
Freemium
Visit website What is it?
Otter turns speech into text as it happens. It can join video calls, but it also records from your phone, so it works for in-person meetings, interviews, lectures and voice memos.
Transcripts appear live and are searchable afterwards, with speaker labels and AI summaries. You can also upload existing audio or video files to be transcribed, which the meeting-only tools do not offer. An AI chat answers questions across all your recordings.
The free plan caps minutes per month and per conversation, and the accuracy drops with strong accents or background noise. For call-only use, Fathom gives you more for free.
Who it's for
Journalists, students, researchers and anyone who records conversations outside of video calls.
Best for
- In-person meeting transcripts
- Interviews and research
- Transcribing uploaded audio
- Lectures and training sessions
Why it made the list
The most flexible transcription tool here: phone, desktop, live and uploaded files all in one place.
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