The short answer
Fireflies, Otter and Fathom all record your call, write a summary and let you search across meetings. They differ in who they are built for.
- Fathom: best free recorder, strong for sales teams on HubSpot or Salesforce.
- Otter: best for full, searchable transcripts and phone apps.
- Fireflies: best for integrations and many languages.
- SayBriefly: best for client work. No bot on Mac and Windows, calls grouped into threads, "Since last call" on every note, and each call next to the client's project, Gmail and brief.
People searching "Fireflies vs Otter" or "Fathom vs Fireflies" usually want one thing: which AI note taker should I pay for? The honest answer is that the three are closer than their marketing suggests. They all join your call, transcribe it, summarize it and answer questions across your past meetings.
SayBriefly is our product, and it takes a different road. It records from your computer with no bot, then keeps each call inside the client's project with their email, the agreed brief and your tasks. We say below where each of the other three is the better pick.
A recap tells you what happened. Memory tells you what it means.
The three things that actually differ
Bot or no bot
Fireflies, Otter and Fathom send a bot into the call by default. Each has a way around it. SayBriefly never sends one.
What happens after
A summary and action items, then: a CRM, a shared transcript, a Slack post, or your own to-do list tied to the project.
Memory across calls
All four can search or chat across meetings. Only one opens each note with what changed since the last call with that client.
1. Bot or no bot
Fireflies, Otter and Fathom each put a named guest in your Zoom, Meet or Teams call. On a sales demo, nobody minds. On a first call with a new client, or a tense one about budget, a bot changes the room. Each vendor now offers a way around it: the Fireflies Chrome extension, the Otter desktop app, and Fathom's bot-free mode, which its pricing page marks as a beta for Mac. SayBriefly has no bot at all, on Mac and Windows.
2. What happens after the call
All four write a summary with action items. The difference is where it goes next. Fathom and Fireflies push notes and tasks into your CRM and tools like Asana. Otter keeps a shared, searchable transcript for the team. SayBriefly puts action items on your own to-do list, each linked to the project and the call it came from.
3. Memory across calls
It is not true that these tools forget. Ask Fathom, Otter's AI chat and Fireflies' AskFred all answer questions across your meetings. What they do not do is write the new note with the old ones in mind. SayBriefly groups calls with the same client into one thread, and opens each new note with what got done, what is still open, what was asked again and what changed.
Example of the layout. Real notes only show what was said on the calls.
Fireflies vs Otter vs Fathom vs SayBriefly: feature matrix
| Feature |  SayBriefly |  Fireflies |  Otter |  Fathom |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bot joins the call by default | SayBriefly: No | Fireflies: Yes | Otter: Yes | Fathom: Yes |
| Record without a bot | SayBriefly: Yes, Mac and Windows | Fireflies: Chrome extension | Otter: Desktop app | Fathom: Beta, Mac |
| Desktop apps | SayBriefly: Mac, Windows | Fireflies: Yes | Otter: Yes | Fathom: Yes |
| Phone apps | SayBriefly: No | Fireflies: iOS, Android | Otter: iOS, Android | Fathom: Not stated |
| Search or chat across all meetings | SayBriefly: Yes, Scribbble | Fireflies: Yes, AskFred | Otter: Yes, Otter AI chat | Fathom: Yes, Ask Fathom |
| Recurring calls grouped into threads | SayBriefly: Yes | Fireflies: No | Otter: No | Fathom: No |
| Note opens with what changed since last call | SayBriefly: Yes | Fireflies: No | Otter: No | Fathom: No |
| Calls linked to client project, Gmail and brief | SayBriefly: Yes | Fireflies: No | Otter: No | Fathom: No |
| CRM sync (HubSpot, Salesforce) | SayBriefly: No | Fireflies: Yes | Otter: Not stated | Fathom: Yes |
| Tasks, calendar, dictation in the same app | SayBriefly: Yes | Fireflies: No | Otter: No | Fathom: No |
| Paid entry price | SayBriefly: See the app | Fireflies: Pro from $10 a seat a month, yearly | Otter: Pro $8.33 a user a month yearly, $16.99 monthly | Fathom: Premium $16 a month yearly, $20 monthly |
| Free plan | SayBriefly: See the app | Fireflies: Unlimited transcription, 400 minutes storage | Otter: 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes a meeting | Fathom: Unlimited recordings and transcripts |
Checked on each vendor's own website, September 2026. Prices and betas change often, so check before you buy.
Fireflies: best for integrations
The connector
Fireflies sends a bot, transcribes, and then pushes notes into a long list of tools. AskFred answers questions across meetings. Its pricing page says English is the main language, with Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian and more than 100 others in beta. Reviewers report the bot rejoining calls and some AI features using credits.
Pick Fireflies if your notes need to land in many other tools.
Leaving it? See our Fireflies alternatives.
Otter: best for transcripts
The transcript specialist
Otter has been writing down meetings for years and it shows: clean transcripts, AI chat across meetings, and apps everywhere. Its pricing page lists a 30 minute cap per meeting on the free plan, 90 minutes on Pro and 4 hours on Business, and six languages. Reviewers complain about the bot auto-joining once the calendar is connected.
Pick Otter if you want every word, searchable, on every device.
Leaving it? See our Otter alternatives.
Fathom: best free recorder
The free favorite
Fathom is the best-reviewed of the three. Its free plan records and transcribes without a limit, the recaps are strong, and Ask Fathom searches across calls. Paid plans sync to HubSpot and Salesforce, with field-level CRM sync on Business. Reviewers note that fuller AI features are capped on the free plan.
Pick Fathom if you want a great recorder at no cost, or you sell for a living.
Leaving it? See our Fathom alternatives.
SayBriefly: best for client work across many calls
The memory
SayBriefly records from your computer, so no bot joins. It works with Zoom, Google Meet, Teams and browser calls, and the note is ready about a minute after the call. Recurring calls become one thread, each note opens with Since last call, and every call sits in the client's project with their Gmail threads and the brief.
Ask Scribbble "what has Lena asked for across our calls and emails, and is it in the brief?" and it answers from all of it. When a request is not in the brief, you see it before you say yes.
Worth knowing
- No iPhone or Android app
- Email works with Gmail for now
- No CRM sync; it is built for delivering projects, not a sales pipeline
Pick SayBriefly if the same clients come back call after call.
More on the SayBriefly AI notetaker and on using it as a Zoom AI notetaker.
Recording consent: bot or no bot, tell people
A bot at least announces itself. A bot-free recorder does not, so the telling is up to you. This is not theory. In August 2025, Brewer v. Otter.ai was filed in California, claiming Otter recorded people without consent and trained its AI on those recordings. Granola, a bot-free note taker, also faces a recording-consent class action. Both were unresolved in 2026 according to public reporting.
Whatever tool you pick from this page, say at the start of the call that you take notes, and put a line in your contract. Some places require everyone's consent before a call is recorded.
Who should pick which
| Your situation | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Want a strong free recorder | Fathom | Unlimited free recordings and transcripts |
| Sales team on HubSpot or Salesforce | Fathom or Fireflies | CRM sync built in |
| Notes must reach many tools | Fireflies | Longest integration list |
| Need every word, on your phone too | Otter | Transcripts plus iOS and Android apps |
| Calls in many languages | Fireflies | 100+ languages in beta |
| Same clients, week after week | SayBriefly | Threads and Since last call |
| No bot allowed, team on Windows | SayBriefly | Bot-free on Mac and Windows |
| Scope creep keeps biting you | SayBriefly | Calls checked against the brief and email |
How we compared them
We checked each vendor's own pricing and product pages in September 2026 and read public reviews. We only state what a vendor says about itself; anything from reviews is marked as what reviewers report. SayBriefly is our product, and we have said where the others are the better choice.
One client call, four tools
Feature lists blur together. So here is one call, run through all four. A studio is building a booking app for a yoga school. On the kickoff call three weeks ago, the brief was locked: iPhone app only, class booking and payments, no Android in this phase. Today, on a friendly progress call, the owner, Hana, says:
"The teachers love it. Can we get it on Android too before launch? Most of our students have Android phones."
| Tool | What you get after the call |
|---|---|
| Fireflies | A note and transcript with the request as an action item, which can flow to your CRM or task tool. You can ask its assistant about past calls. |
| Otter | A full, searchable transcript and summary with the request in it. You can ask Otter's chat about earlier meetings. |
| Fathom | A strong recap with the request as a next step, and Ask Fathom to search across calls. |
| SayBriefly | The same kind of note, linked to the yoga app project with the earlier calls, Hana's emails and the brief. It flags that Android is outside the brief, with her words and the brief line. |
Example of the layout. Real alerts only quote what was said.
All four capture the sentence. The difference is what happens next. With the first three, you have to remember the brief and connect the dots. With SayBriefly, the dots are already next to each other. You still decide whether Android is a change quote or phase two.
A trial script you can copy
Most people judge a note taker on one meeting. Use the same short script for every tool you test, so you compare like with like.
Tool: ____________ Platform: Mac / Windows 1. Did anything join the call that my client could see? Y / N 2. How long after the call was the note ready? ___ min 3. Were names and numbers right? (check 3 of each) 4. Were action items clear, with an owner? Y / N 5. On the SECOND call with the same client, did the note mention the first? Y / N 6. Could I find what the client asked for 2 calls ago in under a minute? Y / N 7. Did tasks land where I actually work? Y / N 8. Where do the notes live: CRM / app / my project? ____________
Questions 5 and 6 matter most for anyone with repeat clients. A single note can look great in every tool. The difference shows on the third and fourth call.
Three real weeks, three different picks
A sales rep with 20 demos a week
Every call is a new prospect. The job is to log each call into the CRM fast. Memory across a client matters less than the pipeline. Fireflies or Fathom fit well, with their CRM sync.
A researcher running 10 interviews
Every word counts, quotes get pulled into a report, and the transcript is the product. Otter's full transcripts and search are the draw.
A designer with 4 clients, 3 calls each
The same people come back every week, and the hard part is what was promised, what is still open and what is outside the brief. That is the case SayBriefly is built for: every call is linked to its project with the client's email and tasks, and each note opens with Since last call.
Sales
CRM sync and quick logs: Fireflies or Fathom.
Research
Full transcripts and quotes: Otter.
Client work
Project memory across calls: SayBriefly.
Mistakes people make when choosing
| Mistake | Why it hurts | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Testing on one call only | Every tool writes a decent single note | Test across two or three calls with the same client |
| Choosing on transcript accuracy alone | Most tools are close enough now | Judge what happens to the tasks and follow-ups |
| Ignoring where notes end up | Notes in a CRM or a separate app get forgotten | Put notes next to the project, email and tasks |
| Not telling clients | Trust and, in some places, the law | Say it at the start and put a line in the contract |
| Moving every old note from your old tool | Days of work for notes you never open | Export only active clients |
More: Fireflies alternatives, Otter alternatives, Fathom alternatives, and our best AI note takers roundup.
Questions people ask
Which is better, Fireflies or Otter?
Fireflies if you want many integrations and CRM sync. Otter if you want a clean, searchable transcript and phone apps. Both send a bot by default. Neither links calls to a client's project, email and brief.
Fathom vs Fireflies: which one should I use?
Fathom has the stronger free plan, with unlimited recordings and transcripts. Fireflies has more integrations and works in more languages. Both are built around sales calls and CRM sync.
What is the best AI note taker in 2026?
It depends on the job. Fathom for a free recorder, Otter for transcripts, Fireflies for integrations, and SayBriefly for client work where the same people come back call after call.
Which AI note taker works without a bot?
SayBriefly records from your computer on Mac and Windows with no bot. Otter's desktop app and the Fireflies Chrome extension can record without the bot too, and Fathom has a bot-free beta on Mac.
Do Fireflies, Otter and Fathom remember past meetings?
Yes, all three let you search or chat across your meetings. What they do not do is open each new note with what got done, what is still open and what changed since the last call with that client. SayBriefly does.
How much do Otter and Fathom cost?
Otter Pro is $8.33 a user a month billed yearly, or $16.99 monthly. Fathom Premium is $16 a month billed yearly, or $20 monthly. Both have free plans. Checked on their pricing pages in September 2026.
Is Otter safe to use on client calls?
Otter was named in Brewer v. Otter.ai, a 2025 class action over recording people without consent. Whatever tool you use, tell everyone on the call that you take notes.
Does SayBriefly sync to a CRM?
No. It is built for delivering client projects, so action items go to its own to-do list, linked to the project and the call they came from. If your team lives in HubSpot or Salesforce, Fathom or Fireflies fit better.
Does SayBriefly work with Zoom, Google Meet and Teams?
Yes. It records from your computer, so it works with Zoom, Google Meet, Teams and browser calls, and the note is ready about a minute after the call ends.
Do Fireflies, Otter and Fathom work with Zoom?
Yes. All three list Zoom support on their own sites, along with Google Meet and Microsoft Teams. Check each site for the current list.
Which is best for a freelancer with repeat clients?
The one that remembers the client, not just the call. Test each on two calls with the same person and see whether the second note builds on the first. That is what SayBriefly is built for.
Can I use more than one of these at once?
You can, and it is a good way to compare during a trial week. Tell people on the call, and turn the extras off once you pick one, so clients do not see several bots.
Which one is best for sales calls?
Fireflies and Fathom are popular with sales teams because of their CRM sync. SayBriefly does not sync to a CRM; it is built for delivering client projects.
