I stopped taking meeting notes by hand about two years ago. My notebook used to be full of half-sentences I could barely read the next day. An AI meeting assistant fixed that. It joins the call, transcribes everything, and hands me a summary before I have even closed the Zoom window.
The problem is there are a lot of these tools now. They all promise the same thing: never take notes again. But they differ a lot in pricing, language support, and the features that actually matter day to day. Here is how the three most popular options stack up: Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai, and tl;dv.
How I Compared Them
I judged each tool on the things that matter to someone who sits through meetings every week. Price. Transcription quality. Language support. Integrations. And the standout feature that makes each one worth considering over the others. I also noted the limits on free plans, because a free plan that runs out after two meetings is not really free.
Otter.ai: Best for Live Collaboration
Otter is the tool most people have heard of. Its headline feature is live transcription. You can watch the words appear on screen during the call and even edit or highlight them as the conversation happens. If two people are taking a call and one wants to flag an action item in real time, Otter handles that well.
The free plan gives you 300 transcription minutes per month. There is a catch: each recording is capped at 30 minutes. Most of my standup meetings fit in that window. Longer planning sessions do not. The Pro plan costs $8.33 per user per month when billed annually, or $16.99 if you pay monthly. That annual price makes it the cheapest paid plan of the three.
Two weaknesses matter. Otter supports only about six languages, so it is a poor fit for multilingual teams. And while its mobile app is genuinely good, I found its post-meeting summaries less polished than the competition.
Otter pros
- Live transcription you can read and edit during the call
- Cheapest paid plan at $8.33 per user per month annually
- Solid mobile experience
Otter cons
- Only around six supported languages
- Free plan caps recordings at 30 minutes each
- AI summaries lag behind the other two
Fireflies.ai: Best for Sales Teams and CRM Sync
Fireflies is the quiet workhorse of the three. It does not make the loudest claims, but its integrations are the strongest here: more than 50 of them, including direct CRM sync. For a sales team that lives in a CRM, that matters. Call notes land where they need to land without anyone copying and pasting.
The free plan is generous in an unusual way. Transcription itself is unlimited, but you get 800 minutes of storage per seat, plus limited AI summaries. That means you can transcribe plenty of calls, but you cannot keep every recording forever on the free tier.
Paid plans start at $10 per seat per month billed annually ($18 month to month). The standout spec is language support: more than 100 languages. No other tool in this comparison comes close. Fireflies also offers a bot-free option. If you do not like an AI bot joining your meetings, you can capture audio through the Chrome extension or desktop app instead.
The trade-off is that Fireflies is not as polished for video workflows. If your work revolves around video clips and searching across many recordings, tl;dv handles that better.
Fireflies pros
- 100+ languages, the best in this comparison
- 50+ integrations with CRM sync
- Bot-free capture via extension or desktop app
- Free plan includes unlimited transcription
Fireflies cons
- Only 800 minutes of storage per seat on the free plan
- Weakest option for video clip workflows
tl;dv: Best for Video Clips and Research
tl;dv (pronounced like the abbreviation “too long; didn’t watch”) is built around video. Its best trick is turning meeting recordings into shareable clips. Highlight a moment during the call, and afterward you can send a 60-second clip to a colleague instead of a meeting invite. For user research teams reviewing dozens of interviews, the multi-meeting search is excellent. You can search a phrase and see every moment it came up across all your recordings.
The free plan gives you unlimited recordings with three months of history. That is generous for casual use. The Pro plan is the priciest of the three at $18 per seat per month billed annually ($29 month to month). Language support sits in the middle at 30+ languages.
tl;dv claims more than 6,000 integrations, which sounds impressive. In practice that number comes from automation platforms that connect it to other apps. If you already use those platforms, it is a real advantage. If you want to automate repetitive office tasks, a meeting tool that plugs into your existing workflows is worth more than one that sits alone.
tl;dv pros
- Best video clip creation of the three
- Strong multi-meeting search for research
- Unlimited recordings on the free plan
- 6,000+ integrations
tl;dv cons
- Most expensive paid plan at $18 per seat per month annually
- Free plan only keeps three months of history
- Middle of the pack on languages (30+)
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | Otter.ai | Fireflies.ai | tl;dv |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 300 min/month, 30-min cap per recording | Unlimited transcription, 800 min storage per seat, limited AI summaries | Unlimited recordings, 3-month history |
| Pro price (annual) | $8.33/user/month | $10/seat/month | $18/seat/month |
| Pro price (monthly) | $16.99/user/month | $18/seat/month | $29/seat/month |
| Languages | ~6 | 100+ | 30+ |
| Integrations | Good, general-purpose | 50+ with CRM sync | 6,000+ |
| Standout strength | Live transcription and editing | CRM sync and bot-free capture | Video clips and multi-meeting search |
A Quick Word on Fathom
If all of this sounds like more than you need, Fathom deserves a mention. Its free plan offers unlimited recordings with AI summaries. The summaries are capped on the free tier, but for someone who just wants basic notes on Zoom calls, it is hard to beat. I left it out of the main comparison because its free plan is the whole story. The three tools above compete on depth.
The Verdict: Which One Should You Pick?
There is no single winner. Each tool wins a different use case.
Pick Otter if you want live collaboration. Watching and editing the transcript during the call is genuinely useful for internal meetings. It is also the cheapest paid plan. The language limit only matters if your team works across many languages.
Pick Fireflies if you run a sales team or live in a CRM. The CRM sync alone justifies the price for revenue teams. The 100+ language support makes it the safe choice for international teams. And the bot-free option keeps meetings feeling human.
Pick tl;dv if you work with video or research. Nobody else turns calls into shareable clips this easily. The multi-meeting search is a real time saver for user researchers and anyone who sits through recorded interviews.
For a small business trying to save hours every week, my general advice is this: start with the free plan of whichever tool matches your use case. Run it for two weeks. You will know by the third meeting whether the summaries are good enough to pay for. Most teams I have seen end up keeping whichever tool their busiest meeting-goer already likes, and that is a fine way to decide too.