Trying to choose between Fireflies and Otter? You’re not alone. Both are top AI notetakers that promise to transcribe, summarize, and save you time.
But the real differences don’t show up in product tours. They show up a couple of weeks after you start using them, probably when the summaries miss the point or the bot doesn’t join your call on time.
This blog offers a detailed comparison between Fireflies vs Otter. We’ll discuss how they stack up against each other in pricing, features parity, and if there are better alternatives to both especially for sales teams.
Prefer to listen? Watch this YouTube video that covers everything we’ve broken down in this blog.
Fireflies.ai – A Quick Look at the Meeting AI Assistant
If you've searched “AI meeting notes” on Google or ChatGPT, you've probably seen Fireflies pop up in the top results.
It's become one of the go-to choices for early-stage teams, solo founders, and busy managers who just want one less thing to think about during calls.
But here’s what the search results don’t tell you: Fireflies isn’t really competing with Otter in the same way most people think.
The feature sets might look similar at a glance: record meetings, transcribe calls, auto-summarize. But the product philosophy is different.
What Is Fireflies.ai and How Does It Work?
Fireflies.ai is an AI-powered virtual meeting assistant that joins your calls, records the conversation, transcribes it in near real-time, generates a summary, and sends them automatically to your email inbox after each call.
You’ll need to give it access to your calendar and let its bot (“Fred”) auto-join Zooms or Meets.
Fireflies integrates with platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, and even your calendar, Slack, Notion, and CRM. At a basic level, it aims to save you from multitasking during meetings and forgetting key action items after.
The way Fireflies works is simple in theory. It either joins your meeting as a bot or pulls the recording from your calendar-integrated platforms. Then, its AI transcribes and organizes the content. You get action items, speaker labels, timestamps, and basic sentiment cues depending on the plan you’re on.
But in practice? Things get a little more nuanced. Here’s what you start to notice after using it consistently for a few weeks:
Sure, Fireflies is fast, affordable, and functional. But it’s far from perfect. And it’s certainly not built for nuanced sales coaching, detailed deal analysis, or deep integrations with pipeline metrics.
It’s a good tool when you’re just starting to solve the “note-taking problem” and that’s about it.
Fireflies.ai Features at a Glance
Fireflies is for busy people who want a lightweight way to remember what was said, who said it, and what needs to be done next. It’s not bloated with enterprise features. It’s fast, accessible, and often good enough for everyday internal meetings.
If you want a deeper dive into how it works in the wild, check out our Fireflies AI review blog here.
Some of the key Fireflies features include:
Fireflies.ai Cost: Pricing Plans
Fireflies offers four pricing tiers. Each one unlocks a different layer of automation and collaboration.
Fireflies.ai Pros and Cons
Every tool has tradeoffs. Fireflies is no exception.
Pros of Fireflies.ai
Cons of Fireflies.ai
To sum it up, Fireflies is great if your goal is to remember what was said on a call. But if you’re looking to analyze how your reps handle objections or coach them better, there are better options.
Fireflies.ai Reviews – What Current Users Are Saying
If you’re wondering how Fireflies performs in the wild, just ask its users.
Otter.ai – The Friendly Go-To for Automated Notes
If you’ve ever needed a reliable speech-to-text transcription, you probably have come across Otter.ai.
Otter’s been around since before “AI notetaker” became a product category. Otter has made a good for itself in the speech-to-text transcription space. It’s an easy-to-use product with a clean UI and low-cost pricing.
But like Fireflies, Otter doesn’t lend itself to sales intelligence. It’s built for general productivity use cases. So while it’s fast and user-friendly, it often lacks the deeper insights or sales-specific automation that revenue teams grow into.
How Otter.ai Works for Meetings and Notes
Otter listens while you talk. Whether you're in a Zoom, Google Meet, or just using your phone to record, it starts transcribing in real-time. You can actually watch the words appear as you speak, edit them as you go, and highlight anything important.
It also captures slides during Zoom calls, lets you insert images into notes, and allows team members to add comments or highlights collaboratively. That makes it useful beyond meetings. Think interviews, lectures, webinars, or even podcasts.
One thing that sets Otter apart is its focus on clarity over complexity. You don’t need to worry about APIs or integrations from day one. It’s web-based, mobile-friendly, and gives you instant value without any configuration.
But that simplicity comes at a cost. It’s not as customizable or coachable as tools built for sales orgs. You won’t find pipeline enrichment, behavioral analytics, or buyer intent surfacing.
Otter.ai Features That Matter
Otter isn’t bloated with features. It gives you just enough to stay organized without overwhelming you. The core functionality centers around real-time voice transcription, note-taking, and searchable archives.
Key features include:
Otter.ai Cost: Pricing Plans Explained
Otter’s pricing is structured around usage and collaboration needs. While it’s fairly priced for what it offers, you’ll find it limiting for advanced, sales-specific use cases.
Otter.ai Pros and Cons
Otter is easy to adopt and offers instant transcription value, but it’s not built for complex team workflows or high-stakes revenue calls.
Pros of Otter.ai
Cons of Otter.ai
What Otter AI customers are saying?
Curious how Otter.ai holds up in real-world use? Here's what users say:
Fireflies.ai vs Otter.ai – Feature-by-Feature Comparison
If you’re comparing Otter vs Fireflies on feature checklists alone, you’ll likely walk away thinking they’re interchangeable. But they’re not.
The real differences show up in how they behave in live meetings, what they prioritize after the call ends, and how well they fit into your existing workflows.
Here’s a breakdown of where each one shines:
1. Transcription Accuracy and Languages
Both tools boast strong transcription engines, but Fireflies tends to win in multilingual environments.
Fireflies supports 100+ languages and lets you switch based on the meeting context. If you're a team based in Europe or Southeast Asia, this matters more than you think.
The accuracy is solid, too. It’s often more than 90% accurate in clean audio environments.
Otter, in contrast, is optimized for US English, UK English, Spanish, and French. But while the language coverage is limited, its real-time transcription is slick and fast.
Otter also allows live transcript editing, which can help correct mistakes as you go. Fireflies focuses more on post-call summaries and isn’t built for live editing mid-call.
Verdict: Fireflies is more global. Otter is more reactive and real-time.
AI Summaries and Meeting Highlights
Fireflies does a better job at breaking calls down into digestible action items. It highlights key questions, decisions, next steps, and allows you to turn snippets into “Soundbites.”
These are helpful when you’re trying to share context quickly without sending someone a full transcript.
Otter provides basic summaries at the end of the meeting, but they often read like word clouds. The output is passable. You’ll get topics and timestamps, but it lacks the precision that teams need for sales follow-ups or customer insights.
Also, Fireflies summaries feel more context-aware. They distinguish between when someone is asking a question versus giving a status update. Otter misses these nuances.
Verdict: Fireflies wins the summaries round.
Automation and Bot Attendance
Once you connect your calendar, Fireflies can auto-join every meeting without you lifting a finger. It’s fully hands-off. Most love that. Others (e.g., meeting attendees who aren’t Fireflies users) get spooked when a bot shows up uninvited.
Otter takes a different approach with OtterPilot. It can auto-join Zoom, Google Meet, or Teams, but only when you tell it to. You have more control.
Verdict: Fireflies is fully automated, Otter is consent-based. Choose based on what you’re comfortable with.
Integrations with Tools You Already Use
Fireflies has gone wide with integrations. It connects with CRM systems (like Salesforce and HubSpot), productivity tools (Notion, Slack), and meeting platforms.
Fireflies is more flexible if you want to automate post-call follow-ups or sync notes to your deal pipeline.
Otter is more focused on storage and collaboration. It integrates well with Dropbox, Zoom, and calendar apps, but the CRM layer is noticeably thin. If you're looking to push notes into your sales stack or customer success platform, you'll find Otter’s limitations pretty quickly.
Verdict: Fireflies makes up for its lack of sales-specific features with its rich integrations. Otter is better if you just want notes to stay organized.
Free Plan Comparison
Otter’s free plan gives you a generous 300 transcription minutes per month and even lets you collaborate with teammates. For solo users or small teams, it’s probably enough to get through a few calls a week.
Fireflies’ free plan gives you unlimited transcription, limited AI summaries, and 800 mins of storage/seat. Once you hit that wall, you’re forced to upgrade. And fast.
Verdict: Both tools are equally generous about letting users test the product before committing financially. Going purely by the transcription minutes, Fireflies wins.
Team Collaboration and Admin Features
Otter has a clean UI, but it also does a decent job of supporting team features. Even on the free plan, you can add teammates, chat with them, and share notes.
Fireflies lets its free users comment and bookmark, create clips and soundbites, create team workspaces and up to 3 public channels. It also leans more into centralized control and meeting analytics.
If you're running a 10-person startup, both tools are fine. If you're leading a 50+ person team, Fireflies gives you more control and visibility.
Verdict: Fireflies is better for managing teams at scale.
Pricing Comparison – Which Is More Cost-Effective?
On paper, both tools seem similarly priced. But cost-effectiveness depends on how many meetings you’re having and what you want to do with the output.
- Otter Pro starts at $8.33/month for 1200 minutes
- Fireflies Pro also starts at $10/month for unlimited transcription and 8000 minutes
- Business plans hover around $19–$20/user/month on both sides
To be fair, Fireflies gives you more transcription control at lower tiers and more workflow automation and integrations as you move up.
Verdict: Fireflies delivers more value for money, hands down.
Top 6 Otter and Fireflies Alternatives for Meeting Notes & Conversation Insights
If Otter and Fireflies aren’t cutting it for your team, or if you're outgrowing your capabilities, these six alternatives bring different strengths to the table.
Let’s break down what’s worth your time in 2025.
1. Fathom
Fathom has built a following with product-led growth and a smart Zoom-native strategy. It’s clean, fast, and good at summarizing key moments from your calls. It tags action items, questions, and key points automatically, then sends structured summaries to your inbox or CRM.
If you're someone who doesn’t like crowded dashboards, you’ll love Fathom’s simplicity. There’s no complex setup required. It just joins your Zoom call, takes the notes, and offers highlights almost instantly.
That said, it’s Zoom-only, which is a major constraint. If you’re a Google Meet or Microsoft Teams user, it’s a no-go.
Also, Fathom doesn’t go deep into multi-threaded analysis or coaching layers. For sales and CS teams who want more than just note-taking, Fathom feels like an incomplete solution.
2. Chorus by ZoomInfo
Chorus is one of the older players in the conversation intelligence space. It’s rich with enterprise features and can analyze call data across reps, deals, and stages.
Chorus gives you keyword tracking, talk ratio data, call scoring, and deal insights. It’s built for RevOps leaders who care about trends across hundreds of calls, not just what happened on one.
After acquiring Chorus, ZoomInfo has bundled it into its broader GTM suite. That means you should expect a sales-heavy onboarding process. You’ll also need to commit to the ZoomInfo ecosystem to get the full value.
If you’re looking to replace Chorus with something else, check out our breakdown of the best Chorus AI alternatives.
3. MeetRecord
MeetRecord is one of the most purpose-built tools for sales teams that want AI notetaking plus revenue intelligence.
Unlike Otter or Fireflies, MeetRecord doesn’t just capture your meetings. It analyzes them for behavior patterns, objection handling, and coaching moments.
Yes, you’ll get call summaries. But you’ll also get sales-specific insights mapped to outcomes. Think of it as a layer above your CRM, where actual conversation quality becomes visible.
The product is clean, fast, and easy to get started with. It offers actionable intelligence for reps and managers alike.
The platform really stands out for its AI Sales Roleplay capability, which lets reps practice live sales roleplay scenarios in simulated environments. That’s something no other tool in this list offers.
4. Salesloft Conversations
Salesloft Conversations is a part of Salesloft’s broader sales engagement suite. It gives you transcriptions, snippets, and meeting insights tied directly to your cadences and deals. If you’re already using Salesloft for outreach or pipeline, this is a logical add-on.
The tool offers talk-time metrics, keywords, objections, and gives you call libraries to study top performing behaviors. While it’s not as lightweight as Fireflies vs Otter, the integrations are better for sales teams.
5. Clari Copilot
Clari rebranded Wingman as Copilot after its acquisition, and it’s still trying to find its identity. It offers live sales coaching during calls, post-call analytics, and a smart tagging system for deal risks and customer objections.
Clari Copilot is better than Otter.ai or Fireflies if you’re a RevOps leader because it connects conversations to forecast outcomes.
But if you go by actual Clari users who talk about it on Reddit, the tool is not as intuitive as other tools on this list. It does deliver value once you’ve invested the time to set it up.
6. Jamie
Jamie is part AI notetaker, part meeting assistant. It joins your meetings and delivers summary almost instantly after the call.
It stands out with its speed, multi-language capabilities, and no-login approach. If you’re a guest invited to a meeting, you don’t need to install anything.
What makes Jamie interesting is its focus on UX. The summaries are visual, fast, and organized into smart sections like topics, decisions, and action items. You can customize the tone and format, which gives it an edge for users who hate one-size-fits-all summaries.
However, Jamie is mostly focused on notes and summaries. It doesn’t go deep into analytics or integrations. If you're part of a growing sales team or need cross-functional collaboration, Jamie feels lacking.
Fireflies vs Otter vs Top Alternatives: Quick Comparison
Here’s a quick side-by-side breakdown of how the top Fireflies vs Otter.ai competitors stack up on features for modern sales teams:
Go Beyond Notetaking with MeetRecord
Most AI notetakers stop at transcription. Some throw in basic summaries, a few offer action items.
But none of that helps if the notes sit in a dashboard you never revisit. MeetRecord was built with a different thesis: that what happens on the call should actively shape how you sell, coach, and forecast.
So while Otter and Fireflies are solid utilities for general note-taking, MeetRecord leans into where AI can move the needle: rep performance, revenue clarity, and coaching at scale.
Why MeetRecord Is More Than Just a Note-Taker
The platform doesn’t just listen to your meetings. It turns conversations into coaching inputs, revenue signals, and pipeline actions.
With MeetRecord, you can analyze the behavioral insights, performance benchmarks, and automated nudges to actually control the deal outcomes.
Let’s look at what sets it apart.
AI Sales Roleplay and Coaching Tools
This is one of the few areas where MeetRecord is genuinely a category leader.
The AI Sales Roleplay feature lets reps practice real-world scenarios: handling objections, pitching products, or navigating discovery calls. You don’t have to wait for a manager to block time.
It simulates conversations and scores reps based on how they handle tone, pace, clarity, and relevance.
This matters because most teams coach reactively. For example, sales managers might schedule a coaching session when a deal turns cold.
But MeetRecord, you aren’t stuck with the problems in the traditional coaching; inconsistency, lack of time availability, or lack of resources.
Reps can train on their own time, improve in real-time, and go into real meetings fully prepared and confident.
The AI sales roleplay also gives leaders a way to track rep improvement over time, not just guess it based on pipeline movement. For fast-moving sales teams, this is a force multiplier.
Real-Time Insights and Call Scoring
MeetRecord understands that all calls are not created equal. It scores every conversation based on what actually happens on the call.
- Did the rep ask enough open-ended questions?
- Did they talk over the buyer?
- Was pricing discussed too early?
- Did the buyer show intent?
These are real-time performance signals organized around sales behavior that correlates with closed revenue.
Managers get immediate visibility into which reps need coaching and which calls are at risk, even if they never join the meeting.
CRM Integration and Workflow Automation
One of the biggest frustrations with AI notetakers is that they often create another inbox. You still need to manually copy notes into the CRM, update next steps manually, or remind yourself to follow up.
MeetRecord fixes that. Its CRM automation capability syncs notes, action items, and call summaries directly into your CRM. You can map fields, trigger workflows, and even assign follow-up tasks based on what happened in the meeting.
That means no more digging through transcripts to remember what was said. MeetRecord will automate the call context into the tools your team already uses.
Want to see what smart CRM workflows actually look like? Grab the free CRM Automation Cheatsheet ebook.
Which Tool Should You Choose? A Quick Guide Based on Your Use Case
There’s no single “best” AI notetaker. It depends on who you are, how you work, and what you actually need the notes for. Here are some tips to help you decide:
Choose What Actually Moves the Needle
Choosing between Fireflies vs Otter comes down to what you actually need from your meetings.
If you're looking for speed, simplicity, and generous free usage, Otter is the pragmatic choice. It’s reliable, easy to adopt, and gets the basics right.
If you want richer summaries, language flexibility, and hands-off automation, Fireflies edges ahead. It’s more global, slightly more powerful, and better suited for teams that want to scale AI note-taking across regions.
But if your goal isn’t just documenting conversations, then neither tool will get you far enough.
That’s where MeetRecord stands out. It listens like a notetaker, but thinks like a sales coach. With AI sales roleplay, live call scoring, and revenue-grade CRM integrations, it doesn’t just tell you what happened on the call. It helps shape what happens on the next one.
If you’re serious about rep performance, deal velocity, and predictable growth, it’s worth seeing what MeetRecord can do. Book a demo and see it in action.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Otter.ai is better if you need a simple, affordable tool for real-time transcription and note sharing. Fireflies is better for automated summaries, multi-language support, and sales-focused features.
Fireflies.ai is a reliable AI notetaker that automatically records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings. It’s especially useful for teams needing multilingual support and CRM integrations.
Fireflies.ai offers more flexibility, supports more platforms, and delivers deeper meeting summaries than Zoom AI Companion. It's a stronger choice for teams needing detailed insights across different meeting tools.
Otter.ai is a strong choice for individuals and teams who want accurate, real-time transcription, a generous free plan, and easy collaboration without complex setup.
For sales teams, the best AI notetaker is MeetRecord since it goes beyond transcription to offer coaching insights, call scoring, and CRM-ready workflows that improve rep performance and deal outcomes.
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