I tried 3 open-source alternatives to Otter for my meeting notes, and one runs entirely on my PC
Because open-source doesn't always mean private
In the quest to find an open-source alternative to Otter for meeting notes, I tested Meetily, Anarlog, and OpenWhispr, while Otter ran alongside. All three tools recorded the same Google Meet call, which was a three-minute scripted briefing read by my MacBook Air's text-to-speech function. The meeting featured 15 traps, including sensitive information and deadlines.
OpenWhispr, an MIT-licensed dictation app, recorded and summarized the meeting locally. Its transcript was the most accurate, scoring 10 out of 15 points, and it correctly identified offline. However, it made mistakes like naming the GPU as RTX 5070T and Windows as Windows 1126H2. Its summary was clean, catching all decisions and action items without any hallucinations.
Meetily, with its MIT-licensed Community Edition, also recorded everything locally. While its transcript was the weakest at 8 out of 15, it correctly identified decisions and action items, matching Otter. It even admitted its transcript was garbled after the trial ended.
Anarlog, initially Hyprnote, was an MIT-licensed note-taker that runs on Apple Silicon or cloud-based models. It had the most accurate product names, getting the RTX 5070 Ti and Windows 11 26H2 right, but missed deadlines and had several missing words in its transcript. Its summary caught both decisions and two action items, but it failed to capture a participant's deadline.
Despite the flaws, Otter remains a default choice due to its accuracy and ease of use. However, for confidential and legally sensitive meetings, tools like Meetily and OpenWhispr are strong contenders.
Written by urgent.news from XDA Developers's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
