On-device: audio never leaves your machine. No bot, no cloud.
HappyScribe sells scale and breadth: AI transcription in 150+ languages, translation in 80+ languages, a notetaker that auto-joins Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams from your calendar, a browser workspace where a whole team edits the same transcript, human proofreading with 99% accuracy when the transcript has to be perfect, and MCP, Zapier and API access when transcript data feeds other tools. It is a mature, widely adopted platform whose published claims include enterprise compliance certifications and GDPR-aligned EU hosting, mobile apps for iOS and Android, and a free tier that needs no card.
That shape serves real needs. Multilingual teams, transcription at volume, and anyone who wants a person to check the transcript before it goes to a client are exactly who HappyScribe is for. This page exists for the opposite set of constraints, and it is worth stating them precisely before the comparison.
Some buyers cannot let the cloud be in the loop at all. For them the requirement is not "a trusted vendor" but "no vendor": capture, transcription, and summarisation must run on the machine in front of them, verifiably, with nothing uploaded at any step. Some work in places where an internet connection cannot be assumed — fieldwork, secure facilities, flights — so the tool must run fully offline. Some simply do not want a monthly per-seat subscription for an assistant that could live locally, and would rather own the output outright. If any of those describe you, HappyScribe's strengths are beside the point, and the rest of this page is the practical comparison.
Ranked by fit for local, bot-free meeting notes. Clearminutes is the local-first anchor at the end.
Otter.ai puts a bot in every call and sends audio to its servers. Clearminutes runs on your machine.
Best for: sales teams that want CRM-synced cloud notes and a polished shared workspace. A bot joins every call and audio goes to Otter's servers. The free tier caps at 300 minutes a month, with no on-device or offline option.
Price: $0/forever
Otter.ai is best for sales teams who want CRM-synced cloud notes and a polished shared workspace. A bot joins every call and audio goes to Otter's servers, with a free tier capped at 300 minutes a month and no on-device or offline option. Strong on Zoom, Teams, Salesforce, and HubSpot integration, weak on privacy and native cross-platform apps. Pick it when team collaboration matters more than keeping audio on the device.
Meeting transcription without the awkward "Fireflies has joined" announcement or monthly subscription.
Best for: teams that want a rich searchable transcript archive and deep CRM integrations with Salesforce and HubSpot. A cloud bot joins every call and audio is stored on Fireflies.ai's servers. The free tier is limited to 800 minutes of storage per seat.
Price: $0/forever
Fireflies.ai is best for teams who want a rich searchable transcript archive and deep CRM integrations like Salesforce and HubSpot. A cloud bot joins every call and audio is stored on Fireflies.ai's servers, with the free tier limited to 800 minutes of storage per seat. Strong on search and CRM workflows, weak on privacy and offline use. Pick it when searchable team transcripts matter more than local processing.
Fathom is a free Zoom-only cloud notetaker. Clearminutes works with any audio source, runs locally on Mac and Windows, and doesn't need Zoom.
Best for: teams on Zoom who want a free, simple cloud notetaker with unlimited recordings and 28-language support. A bot joins every call, coverage is Zoom-only, and audio is uploaded to Fathom's servers. There's no on-device transcription path and no offline option.
Price: $0/forever
Fathom is best for teams on Zoom who want a free, simple cloud notetaker with unlimited recordings and broad 28-language support. A bot joins every call, coverage is Zoom-only, and audio is uploaded to Fathom's servers with no on-device transcription path. Strong on free-tier generosity and language coverage, weak on platform breadth and privacy. Pick it when you live on Zoom and want free cloud notes.
Jamie is bot-free but summarises in the cloud on Mac and Windows. Clearminutes keeps the summary on-device too, with a real free tier.
Best for: individuals who want a free, bot-free local summary on Mac and Windows with export to Notion, Slack, and HubSpot. The free tier is limited and the paid plan is £25/month for fuller features. The feature set is lighter than the cloud incumbents.
Price: £0/forever
Jamie is best for individuals who want a free, bot-free local summary on Mac and Windows with Notion, Slack, and HubSpot export. Processing is partial — offline is available but summaries are not fully on-device. The free tier is limited and the paid plan is £25 a month. Strong on bot-free capture and export, weak on Linux, a real free tier, and a local LLM. Pick it for solo Mac or Windows use.
Granola is a polished Mac-only drafting app that processes audio in the cloud. Clearminutes runs on-device, on Mac and Windows, with a one-off Pro price.
Best for: Mac users who want a polished meeting summary app that drafts notes and exports to Notion, Slack, and HubSpot. It's Mac-only with cloud-only audio processing, a limited free tier, and a £14–35/month subscription. The integration surface is smaller than the cloud incumbents.
Price: £0/forever
Granola is best for Mac-only users who want a polished cloud-native drafting workflow with custom templates, chat-with-meetings, action items, cross-meeting search, and speaker diarization, plus Notion, Slack, and HubSpot export. Audio is processed on Granola's servers with no local option, and the paid plans run £14–35 a month. Strong on the Mac drafting experience, weak on Windows, Linux, offline, and a real free tier. Pick it for Mac-only work in those three tools.
Krisp pioneered noise cancellation. Clearminutes is a complete AI meeting assistant: transcription, summaries, action items, and task sync.
Best for: teams that need noise cancellation first and a meeting assistant second. Transcription is a cloud add-on, not the core product. There's a 14-day trial then a limited free tier, 16-language support, and an $8–15/month paid plan for full features.
Price: $0/forever
Krisp is best for teams who need noise cancellation first and a meeting assistant second. Transcription is a cloud add-on rather than the core product; noise cancellation runs locally but transcription does not. A 14-day trial gives way to a limited free tier, with a paid plan at $8–15 a month for full features across 16 languages. Strong on noise removal, weak on on-device transcription and offline notes. Pick it when call audio is noisy.
tl;dv records Google Meet, Zoom, and Teams in the cloud with a bot in the call. Clearminutes keeps the recording on your machine and works offline.
Best for: teams on Google Meet, Zoom, and Teams who want a free-tier cloud recorder with 30+ language transcripts and Chrome-based capture. A bot joins every call and audio is uploaded to tl-dv's servers. The paid plan is $20–25/month, with no on-device transcription option.
Price: $0/forever
tl;dv is best for teams on Google Meet, Zoom, and Teams who want a free-tier cloud recorder with 30+ language transcripts and Chrome-based capture. A bot joins every call and audio is uploaded to tl;dv's servers, with a $20–25 a month paid plan and no on-device transcription option. Strong on multi-platform recording and language coverage, weak on privacy and offline use. Pick it for free cloud recording across meeting platforms.
Avoma is a cloud sales-intelligence platform for revenue teams. Clearminutes is a local-first desktop app with no bots, no uploads, and on-device AI.
Best for: revenue teams that want conversation intelligence, CRM auto-entry, and AI coaching scorecards on top of meeting notes. A bot or integration joins every call and audio is uploaded to Avoma's cloud on AWS. There's no free tier, just a 14-day trial, and no on-device transcription.
Price: $19/seat/mo/annual
Avoma is best for revenue and customer-success teams who want conversation intelligence, CRM auto-entry, and AI coaching scorecards on top of meeting notes. A bot or integration joins every call and audio is uploaded to Avoma's cloud on AWS, with no free tier beyond a 14-day trial and no on-device transcription. Strong on Salesforce, HubSpot, and coaching analytics, weak on privacy and any offline or no-bot workflow. Pick it when revenue analytics matter more than keeping audio on the device.
Two local-first Tauri apps built on similar technology. Meetily is open source with a new Pro tier. Clearminutes adds speaker diarization, integrations, guided onboarding, and active commercial development.
Best for: developers who want an open-source local notes tool that runs Whisper on-device with unlimited free use. There are no integrations and no diarization polish. The split is Free Community / $10 Pro, and on Linux it's buildable from source rather than a packaged app.
Price: £0/forever
Meetily is best for developers who want a fully auditable, MIT-licensed local notes tool that runs Whisper on-device with unlimited free use. There are no integrations, diarization is only coming soon on Pro, and there's no commercial support, just the community. On Linux it's buildable from source rather than a packaged app. Strong on openness and local processing, weak on polish, integrations, and support. Pick it when an auditable open-source codebase matters more than a finished product.
Notion AI Meeting Notes lives in your Notion workspace and sends audio to cloud sub-processors. Clearminutes keeps audio on your machine with no account and no uploads.
Best for: teams already living in Notion who want meeting notes inline in their workspace. Audio goes to OpenAI, Anthropic, and other third-party LLMs, with no on-device transcription. Speaker identification is English-only and 1:1-best, and a Notion account is required.
Price: £0/forever
Notion AI Meeting Notes is best for teams already living in Notion who want meeting notes inline in their workspace. Audio goes to OpenAI, Anthropic, and other third-party LLMs, with no on-device transcription, and a Notion account is required. Speaker identification is English-only and works best 1:1. Strong on in-workspace notes and custom templates, weak on privacy, offline, and any no-account workflow. Pick it when workspace notes matter more than keeping audio off third-party servers.
Speechmark is a Mac menu-bar app that processes on-device after the call. Clearminutes adds Windows, a live transcript during the call, and a network monitor.
Best for: UK teams on macOS who want a local-first, no-bot meeting notes tool with one-time pricing (free during beta) and a Claude Desktop connector. It's Mac-only, with no live transcript and no privacy network monitor. Summaries are processed after you stop recording.
Price: Free/during beta
Speechmark is best for UK teams on macOS who want a local-first, no-bot meeting notes tool with one-time pricing, free during beta then a single purchase, and a Claude Desktop connector. It's Mac-only on Apple silicon, with no live transcript because it processes after you stop, and no privacy network monitor. Strong on local audio and no-account simplicity, weak on cross-platform and live capture. Pick it when a one-time Mac tool matters more than Windows, Linux, or a live transcript.
Trilla is a free local-first Mac app on Apple Silicon. Clearminutes adds Windows, task sync, and a Pro tier.
Best for: Mac users on Apple Silicon who want a free, local, no-bot transcriber running Whisper and Ollama on-device, with local voice prints and no account. It's macOS-only, with no Windows or Linux build. The integration surface is smaller and the feature set is lighter than the cross-platform options.
Price: £0/forever
Trilla is best for Mac users on Apple Silicon who want a free, local, no-bot transcriber that runs Whisper and Ollama on-device with local voice prints and no account. Every feature is free with no subscription and no gating. It's macOS-only, with no Windows or Linux build, and it relies on Ollama for local summaries rather than shipping a built-in LLM. Strong on free local capture, weak on cross-platform and integrations. Pick it when free and local on Mac matters more than Windows or Pro integrations.
On-device, no bot, no cloud audio.
Best for: privacy-first teams who want meeting notes without uploading audio to the cloud.
Price: £0/forever
Clearminutes is best for teams who need meeting audio to stay on the device. Transcription runs on local Whisper and summaries on a built-in local LLM, with no cloud upload at any step. It works offline, ships for Windows alongside macOS, and shows zero outbound audio connections in its in-app network monitor. A real free tier and bring-your-own API keys make it the local-first pick when every other tool on this list sends audio to the cloud.
| Feature | Granola | Avoma | Jamie | Speechmark | Fireflies.ai | Krisp | tl;dv | Trilla | Otter.ai | Fathom | Meetily | Notion AI Meeting Notes | Clearminutes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meeting bots | No | Yes (bot or integration joins call) | No | No | Yes (bot joins call) | No (bot-free option) | Yes (bot joins call) | No | Bot joins call | Yes (bot joins call) | No | No | No |
| Local processing | No (cloud-only) | No (cloud-only) | Partial (offline available) | — | No (cloud-only) | Partial (noise cancellation local, transcription cloud) | No (cloud-only) | Yes (Whisper + Ollama) | No (cloud-only) | No (cloud-only) | Yes (Whisper) | No | Yes (on-device models) |
| Speaker identification | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (confirm-name flow) | — | Yes | Yes | Yes (local voice prints) | Yes | Yes | — | Yes (English only, 1:1 best) | Yes (Pro) |
| Works offline | — | No | — | — | No | Partial (noise cancellation offline) | No | — | No | No | — | No | Yes (local models) |
| Free tier | Yes (limited history) | No (14-day trial only; viewers free on paid plans) | Yes (limited) | — | Yes (limited AI summaries, 800 min storage) | Yes (14-day trial, then limited) | Yes (limited recordings) | Yes (unlimited) | Yes (300 min/month) | Yes (unlimited recordings) | Yes (unlimited, open source) | Limited AI trial (Free/Plus) | Yes |
| Language support | — | 40+ languages (translation on Organization tier+) | — | — | 69 languages | 16 languages | 30+ languages | — | English, French, Spanish | 28 languages | — | 16 languages | 6+ languages |
For that buyer, HappyScribe has structural gaps that no plan tier changes:
None of this is a defect from HappyScribe's point of view — it is the cost of running a multilingual cloud service at scale. But if your constraint is locality, these are the reasons the platform cannot satisfy it.
HappyScribe is the right call when language coverage and volume are the job: 150+ languages, human proofreading at 99% accuracy, a shared web workspace, calendar-driven notetaking, and integrations through Zapier, API and MCP. Their published claims include enterprise compliance certifications and GDPR-aligned EU hosting, and the team workflows are strong.
Clearminutes is the right call when the constraint is that nothing can leave your machine. Capture, transcription (on-device Whisper), and summaries from 20 local models (Gemma default) or your own Ollama instance run entirely on-device, with no bot in the call and no account required. It works fully offline, shows zero outbound audio connections in its live privacy network monitor, accepts bring-your-own cloud API keys (text only, off by default) for better summaries, and is priced free for local use, £12/mo Pro, or a one-off £249 lifetime licence — not a per-seat model.
You transcribe across many languages at volume, need a shared web workspace where the team edits one transcript, want the calendar notetaker to auto-join Zoom, Google Meet and Teams, depend on integrations via Zapier, API or MCP, or need human proofreading at 99% accuracy when the transcript has to be perfect. HappyScribe's published claims include enterprise compliance certifications and GDPR-aligned EU hosting; iOS and Android apps are live, and the free tier needs no card.
Your hard requirement is that capture, transcription, and summarisation run on your machine: Whisper transcribes on-device and summaries come from 20 local models (Gemma default) or your own Ollama instance, with no bot in the call and no account. It works fully offline, brings your own cloud API keys as an option (text only, off by default), and its in-app privacy monitor shows zero outbound audio connections, so the local-first claim is checkable in the app rather than taken on trust. Pricing is free for local use, £12/mo Pro, or a one-off £249 lifetime licence — not a per-seat model.
What each keeps and gives up is clean: HappyScribe keeps languages, the human tier, the workspace, and the integrations; it gives up the processing path, offline capability, and price predictability. Clearminutes keeps the audio-path guarantee, offline capability, and the one-off price; it gives up language breadth (6+), the human proofreading tier, and cloud team features. If you have read this far, the deciding question is rarely features — it is whether any upload of your meeting content is acceptable. If the answer is no, the choice is local.
Only recording: the mobile app records offline. Transcription and summaries run on HappyScribe's cloud, so an internet connection is needed to get text. There is no on-device pipeline and the desktop app is still listed as 'Soon'.
Yes. Calendar sync auto-joins Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls as a participant. A browser-based recorder exists, but the auto-join notetaker is the headline workflow.
A metered free plan (45 min per recording, 10-minute AI trial). Basic is £8.50/mo annual, Pro £19/mo (3 seats, 600 AI minutes/mo), Business £59/mo (5 seats, 6,000 AI minutes/mo). Extra credits are £0.20/min; human proofreading starts at £1.50/min.
No. On Pro and Business you choose among providers HappyScribe itself offers (ChatGPT, Claude, Mistral, GLM), but you cannot connect your own keys, and there is no on-device model at all.
Yes — a paid add-on from £1.50/min with 99% accuracy and 4h+ delivery, separate from any plan. It is the main reason buyers pick HappyScribe over cloud AI competitors.
They state SOC 2 Type II, GDPR compliance and TLS encryption, and SSO/SAML on Enterprise. It is still cloud processing: your audio and transcripts are uploaded and stored on their servers.
Sources
Local transcription, live transcript view, AI summaries, and a verifiable privacy network monitor. No cloud uploads, no bots, runs on macOS and Windows.