Otter.ai
Free / Pro ~$16.99/mo ($8.33 annual)
Fireflies.ai
Free / Pro ~$10 per user/mo (annual)
Otter.ai excels at real-time transcription and live notes, including in-person meetings. Fireflies is a meeting bot that joins calls, records, transcribes, and pushes notes into your CRM and tools, often cheaper per user. Otter wins on live transcription; Fireflies wins on team automation and integrations.
Pick Otter.ai if you want the best real-time transcription and live notes, including for in-person meetings and personal use.
Pick Fireflies if you want an automated bot that joins calls, transcribes them, and pushes notes into your CRM and team tools, often for less per user.
Otter.ai and Fireflies both turn meetings into searchable transcripts and summaries, but they emphasize different workflows. Otter.ai is strong at real-time transcription and live note-taking, and it handles in-person meetings well, making it popular with individuals, students, and journalists. Fireflies is built around an automated meeting assistant that joins your video calls, records and transcribes them, generates summaries, and pushes the results into CRMs and team tools, which suits sales and operations teams.
On price, Fireflies is often cheaper per user, with Pro around $10 per user a month (billed annually), while Otter's Pro plan is around $16.99 a month (about $8.33 billed annually). The choice is mostly live transcription and personal use (Otter) versus automated team notetaking and integrations (Fireflies).
We compare transcription quality, meeting bots, integrations, price, and use cases.
| Quick facts | Otter.ai | Fireflies.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Core strength | Real-time transcription | Automated meeting bot |
| Paid price | Pro ~$16.99/mo | Pro ~$10/user/mo (annual) |
| In-person meetings | Strong | Limited |
| CRM / tool integrations | Good | Strong |
| Best for | Individuals + live notes | Teams + automation |
Each row reflects the feature on each product's current public release.
| Feature | O Otter.ai | F Fireflies.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Real-time transcription | Best-in-class | Good |
| Auto-joining meeting bot | Some | Best-in-class |
| In-person meeting capture | Yes | Limited |
| AI summaries & action items | Yes | Yes |
| CRM / tool integrations | Good | Strong |
| Search across meetings | Yes | Yes |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Lower price per user | No | Yes |
Pricing and features change often. Always verify the current details on each product's official site. Last reviewed 2026-06-22.
Things neither product's marketing page leads with.
Otter is stronger for live, in-person transcription; Fireflies is stronger as an automated bot for online team meetings.
Fireflies is often cheaper per user and integration-heavy, while Otter is more polished for individual real-time note-taking.
Both raise privacy and consent questions when bots record meetings, so make sure participants are informed.
The average person juggles a dozen subscriptions and forgets at least one. Subkept is a privacy-first subscription tracker: add Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai, and everything else, then get renewal reminders, price-hike alerts, and a clear monthly total, with no bank connection, ever. Free for up to 5 subscriptions, no time limit.
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