Free alternatives to Otter.ai Pro
Otter.ai records and transcribes meetings and conversations, and adds AI summaries and chat. Its paid Pro plan raises the limits on recording minutes and file imports and adds more features.
What it costs
Otter’s official pricing page listed Basic as free and Pro at $16.99 USD per user per month with monthly billing, with a lower monthly price on annual billing (checked October 22, 2026). Check the page for current prices and offers.
Free alternatives
- Otter Basic. Otter’s own free plan includes live transcription, speaker identification, and a monthly allowance of transcription minutes (300 on the day we checked), with a small number of file imports. otter.ai/pricing
- Buzz. A free, open-source desktop app that transcribes and translates audio on your own computer using Whisper models. The free “Buzz Classic” runs on Windows, Linux, and Intel Macs, and exports to TXT, SRT, VTT, and CSV. buzzcaptions.com · source code
- Whisper and whisper.cpp (for technical users). OpenAI’s Whisper is an open-source (MIT) speech-recognition model, and whisper.cpp is a fast open-source port. Both run locally and are used from the command line, so they suit people comfortable installing developer tools.
Honest trade-offs
- Local tools like Buzz keep audio on your device, but they don’t join your Zoom, Teams, or Meet calls for you. You record first, then transcribe.
- Transcribing on your own computer can be slow on older hardware, especially with larger, more accurate models.
- Open-source tools don’t include Otter’s meeting summaries, shared team notes, or calendar integrations.
Who should still pay
If you have many meetings each week and want a notetaker that joins calls automatically, writes summaries, and shares notes with your team, a paid Otter plan is built for that. Always tell people when a meeting is being recorded.
Sources: Otter.ai, Buzz, and GitHub project pages linked above, checked October 22, 2026. We don’t use affiliate links.