Fireflies.ai vs Otter.ai
 Fireflies.ai |  Otter.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Sentiment | ||
| Score | 58/100 | 42/100 |
| Rank in category | #3 | #5 |
| Rated comments | 23 | 27 |
| Best for | People in back-to-back meetings who want transcripts, summaries and action items without taking notes; Teams that want meeting notes pushed into Drive, a CRM or a task tool; Individuals who want a free or low-cost recorder, including on a phone for in-person conversations | Individuals who want transcripts of their own meetings or in-person conversations recorded on a phone; Users who export transcripts into ChatGPT or other tools for their own summaries |
| Skip it if | Teams that would share AI notes with clients without a human check; Calls where a visible bot participant is unwelcome | Organisations that need tight control over who is recorded and who receives meeting notes; Meetings with strong accents or more than one language; Users who need to pause recording mid-call |
| Starting price | $10/seat/mo | $8.33/user/mo |
| Pricing (vendor-stated) | Free plan ($0; unlimited transcription, limited AI summaries, 400 minutes of storage per team). Pro is $10/seat/mo billed annually or $18 monthly; Business is $19/seat/mo billed annually or $29 monthly; Enterprise is $39/seat/mo, annual only. No free trial mentioned. | Free Basic plan (300 transcription minutes per user per month, 30 minutes per conversation). Pro is $8.33/user/mo billed annually or $16.99 monthly; Business is $19.99/user/mo billed annually or $30 monthly; Enterprise is sales-led. No free trial mentioned. |
Independent users who name a preference mostly like Fireflies: 16 of 23 non-promotional opinions are favourable, chiefly from people with heavy meeting loads who say it replaces their own note-taking, lets them query past meetings, and pushes notes into Drive, CRMs or task tools, with some running happily on the free tier. The trade-off is reliability of the output and the app: users report AI notes that get details wrong or miss words, one calls it the buggiest software they have used, and others dislike a bot joining their calls. Over a quarter of the 100 matched comments were promotional, mostly rival notetakers naming Fireflies as the thing to switch from, and are discounted here.
Users like
- Heavy meeting users say it takes note-taking off their plate and catches actions and next steps they would otherwise lose[1][2][3][4][5]
- Past meetings become a searchable record: users ask it what was discussed, and one pulls answers from it through an MCP connection[1][2]
- Integrations push notes and to-dos into Google Drive, CRMs and planners, and one team gets a prep email before recurring meetings[1][2][3]
- Cheap enough to justify personally: one user says the free version does all they need, another pays about $25 a month out of pocket[1][2][3]
Users complain about
- AI notes can be wrong: a consultant says a client's Fireflies auto-posts incorrect notes after every call, and another user says it catches only about 80% of spoken words[1][2]
- Stability complaints: one user who wanted to like it calls it the buggiest web and production app they have used, crashing constantly despite a good UI[1]
- The bot joining calls is a reason users leave: one switched to a bot-free tool for that reason[1]
- CRM auto-posting can misfire: with Zoho it posted a call note to hundreds of deals[1]
Independent opinion is split: of 27 non-promotional opinions, 15 are favourable, from individuals who say it saves note-taking time, records in-person conversations from a phone, and transcribes accurately once speakers are tagged. The criticism centres on how it behaves in other people's meetings: users and admins describe it auto-joining calendars, emailing invitees, being hard to remove and confusing permissions, and one cites a class action over recording without consent; others report weaker summaries, trouble with accents and mixed languages, and a price rise that cut transcription hours. About a sixth of the comments were promotional, including repeated tool-stack lists and three plugs for an unrelated "Vibe Otter" website builder, and are discounted here.
Users like
- Takes over note-taking so users can stay in the conversation; several call it a game changer or big time saver[1][2][3][4][5]
- Records in-person or from a phone without inviting a bot into the meeting[1][2][3]
- Transcripts are searchable or easy to export: users ask what a client said about a topic, or paste transcripts into ChatGPT for summaries[1][2][3]
- Accurate transcription once trained: long-time users praise accuracy after tagging speakers, building a dictionary or correcting words, which it then applies elsewhere[1][2][3][4]
Users complain about
- Intrusive defaults: it can auto-join every calendar meeting, email invitees to sign up, keep inviting itself after being blocked, and send notes to people who did not know they were signed up; one user cites a class action over recording without consent[1][2][3][4]
- Transcription struggles with accents and mixed languages and can split one speaker into two; one user moved to Grain for accuracy[1][2][3]
- Summaries are weaker than alternatives: users find them worse than Zoom's, so-so, or walls of text that need cleanup[1][2][3]
- Pricing: a paying user saw prices rise while transcription hours were cut, and another found the paid tier too expensive[1][2]