Otter.ai vs Fireflies.ai vs Fathom: Best AI Meeting Assistant in 2026 (We Tested All 3)
Otter.ai vs Fireflies.ai vs Fathom: Best AI Meeting Assistant in 2026 (We Tested All 3)
If you’ve ever walked out of a meeting thinking “what did we actually decide?”—you’re not alone. AI meeting assistants have gone from novelty to necessity, and in 2026 the three biggest names in the space are Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai, and Fathom.
We ran all three tools simultaneously across 50+ meetings over 30 days—sales calls, team standups, client demos, and one-on-ones. We compared transcription accuracy, AI summaries, CRM integrations, and overall user experience to figure out which one actually deserves a spot in your tech stack.
Here’s everything we found.
Quick Verdict: Which AI Meeting Assistant Should You Pick?
Short version: Fathom is the best free option and ideal for individuals. Fireflies wins for teams that need deep integrations and workflow automation. Otter is strongest for real-time collaboration and live transcription during meetings.
| Feature | Otter.ai | Fireflies.ai | Fathom |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best For | Live collaboration, real-time notes | Team workflows, CRM automation | Individuals, sales reps |
| Free Tier | 300 min/month, 30-min cap | 800 min total (lifetime) | Unlimited recordings, 5 AI summaries/month |
| Paid Starting Price | $8.33/user/mo (annual) | $10/user/mo (annual) | ~$15/user/mo (annual) |
| Transcription Accuracy | ~90% | ~92% | ~95% |
| CRM Integration | Basic (Salesforce) | Full (Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho+) | Strong (Salesforce, HubSpot) |
| Platform Support | Zoom, Meet, Teams | Zoom, Meet, Teams, Webex, more | Zoom, Meet, Teams |
| Real-time Transcription | ✅ Excellent | ❌ Post-meeting only | ❌ Post-meeting only |
| Mobile App | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ❌ No |
| AI Chat / Ask Questions | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes | ✅ Yes |
| Our Rating | 8.0/10 | 8.5/10 | 8.5/10 |
Otter.ai: The Real-Time Transcription Pioneer
Overview
Otter.ai has been around since 2016 and essentially created the AI transcription category. In 2026, it’s still one of the most recognizable names in the space, and its biggest differentiator remains live transcription—you can see words appearing on screen as people speak during a meeting.
If you’ve ever needed to follow along with a meeting in real time (maybe you joined late, or English isn’t your first language, or you’re multitasking between calls), Otter’s live notes are genuinely useful in a way that post-meeting summaries can’t replicate.
Key Features
- Live transcription with speaker identification during meetings
- OtterPilot auto-joins Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams calls
- AI-generated summaries and action items after each meeting
- Otter AI Chat lets you ask questions about your meeting history
- Collaborative note editing—team members can highlight and comment in real time
- Slide capture from screen shares
- Keyword and topic extraction
Transcription Quality
Otter’s transcription accuracy landed around 90% in our testing, which is good but not best-in-class. It handles clear audio and native English speakers well, but we noticed more errors with heavy accents, cross-talk, and poor microphone quality compared to Fathom.
Where Otter shines is speed—the real-time transcription has almost no perceptible lag, and speaker identification is accurate about 85% of the time without manual correction.
Integrations
Otter integrates with the core platforms: Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Google Calendar, and Outlook. It also connects with Salesforce for basic CRM logging. However, compared to Fireflies, the integration ecosystem is narrower—you won’t find native connections to HubSpot, Slack workflows, or Zapier-level automation without workarounds.
Pricing (2026)
| Plan | Price | Minutes | Key Limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 300 min/month | 30-min meeting cap, 3 lifetime uploads |
| Pro | $8.33/user/mo (annual) | 1,200 min/month | 90-min meeting cap |
| Business | $20/user/mo (annual) | 6,000 min/month | 4-hour meeting cap, admin controls |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | SSO, SCIM, dedicated support |
The free plan is decent for testing but the 30-minute meeting cap makes it impractical for real work. Pro at $8.33/month is the most affordable paid option in this comparison, though the 1,200-minute monthly limit can be tight for heavy users.
Otter.ai Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Best-in-class live transcription
- Collaborative real-time note editing
- Most affordable paid plan
- Solid mobile app
Cons:
- Transcription accuracy trails competitors
- Limited CRM integrations
- Minute caps on every plan can be frustrating
- AI summaries aren’t as detailed as Fireflies or Fathom
Fireflies.ai: The Automation Powerhouse
Overview
Fireflies.ai positions itself as more than a meeting recorder—it’s a meeting intelligence platform. While Otter focuses on live transcription and Fathom leans into simplicity, Fireflies goes deep on post-meeting workflows: automated CRM updates, task creation, conversation analytics, and integration with practically every tool your team already uses.
For sales teams and revenue operations, Fireflies is the most complete package of the three.
Key Features
- Automatic meeting recording and transcription across all major platforms
- AI-powered Smart Summaries with action items, decisions, and key topics
- AskFred AI assistant to query across all your meetings
- Conversation intelligence: talk-to-listen ratios, sentiment analysis, topic tracking
- Automated CRM field population (Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Pipedrive, and more)
- Task creation via voice commands
- Channels for organizing and sharing meeting clips with teams
- Video recording (Business plan and above)
- API access for custom integrations
Transcription Quality
Fireflies delivered about 92% accuracy in our tests, edging out Otter but falling slightly short of Fathom. It handles multi-speaker conversations well, and the speaker labeling is reliable once you’ve trained it with a few meetings.
One area where Fireflies impressed us: it processes meetings remarkably fast. Most transcripts and summaries were ready within 3–5 minutes of the call ending, which is faster than Otter’s post-meeting processing (though Otter’s real-time transcription obviates some of that need).
Integrations
This is where Fireflies pulls ahead. The integration list is extensive:
- CRM: Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Pipedrive, Freshsales
- Project Management: Asana, Trello, Monday.com, ClickUp, Jira
- Communication: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Notion
- Automation: Zapier, Make (formerly Integromat), native API
- Conferencing: Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Webex, Dialpad, RingCentral, and more
The CRM integrations aren’t just “log a link to the transcript.” Fireflies can automatically populate specific CRM fields based on what was discussed in the meeting—deal stages, next steps, competitor mentions. For sales teams, this alone can save hours of manual data entry per week.
Pricing (2026)
| Plan | Monthly Price | Annual Price | Key Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 | 800 min total (lifetime), audio only |
| Pro | $18/user/mo | $10/user/mo | Unlimited transcription*, 8,000 min storage |
| Business | $29/user/mo | $19/user/mo | Unlimited storage, video recording, full CRM |
| Enterprise | Custom | $39/user/mo | Custom integrations, SSO, dedicated support |
*Fireflies’ “unlimited” transcription on paid plans comes with fair-use policies, which is worth noting.
The free plan is the weakest of the three—800 minutes total (not monthly) means it’s essentially a trial. But the annual Pro plan at $10/user/month offers excellent value, and the Business plan at $19 unlocks the full suite of features including video recording and complete CRM integration.
Fireflies.ai Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Deepest integration ecosystem of the three
- Excellent CRM automation for sales teams
- Conversation analytics and sentiment tracking
- Fast post-meeting processing
- Supports the widest range of conferencing platforms
Cons:
- No real-time transcription
- Free plan is very limited (lifetime cap, not monthly)
- AI credits system on some plans adds hidden costs
- Can feel overwhelming—lots of features to configure
Fathom: The Clean, No-Nonsense Notetaker
Overview
Fathom takes a different approach from Otter and Fireflies. Instead of trying to be an all-in-one meeting intelligence platform, it focuses on doing one thing exceptionally well: generating accurate, actionable meeting summaries with minimal setup.
The interface is clean, the onboarding takes about two minutes, and the AI summaries are consistently the most useful of the three. Fathom feels like it was designed by someone who was tired of over-engineered productivity tools.
Key Features
- Automatic meeting recording and transcription (Zoom, Google Meet, Teams)
- AI summaries in multiple formats: brief, detailed, action items, custom templates
- Highlight and clip key moments during or after calls
- CRM integration with Salesforce and HubSpot
- AI-generated follow-up emails
- Fathom AI lets you ask questions about past meetings
- Custom vocabulary for industry-specific terms
- Meeting playlists and organization
Transcription Quality
Fathom had the best transcription accuracy in our testing at approximately 95%. It handles accents, cross-talk, and technical jargon noticeably better than both Otter and Fireflies. The AI seems to do more contextual correction—where Otter might transcribe a garbled word phonetically, Fathom more often gets the intended word right.
Processing time is about 30 seconds to 2 minutes after a call ends, which is fast. The AI summaries are also the most consistently useful—they capture decisions and action items more reliably than the other two tools.
Integrations
Fathom’s integration list is more focused than Fireflies but covers the essentials:
- CRM: Salesforce, HubSpot (with automatic field updates)
- Communication: Slack, email
- Conferencing: Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams
- Automation: Zapier
The CRM integrations are well-executed—Fathom can auto-sync meeting notes, summaries, and action items to the right contact and deal records. It’s not as broadly connected as Fireflies, but for most workflows, it covers what you need.
Pricing (2026)
| Plan | Price | Key Features |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Unlimited recordings and transcripts, 5 AI summaries/month |
| Premium | ~$15/user/mo (annual) or $19/mo monthly | Unlimited AI summaries, CRM integration |
| Team | ~$29/user/mo (annual) | Team management, analytics, shared playlists |
| Enterprise | Custom | SSO, custom integrations, dedicated support |
Fathom’s free tier is the most generous of the three for individuals—unlimited recordings and transcripts with no time caps. The catch is you only get 5 AI summaries per month, which means you’ll quickly want to upgrade if you’re in more than a handful of meetings per week.
Fathom Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Best transcription accuracy of the three
- Most generous free tier (unlimited recordings)
- Cleanest, most intuitive interface
- AI summaries are consistently excellent
- Fast processing time
Cons:
- No mobile app (as of early 2026)
- Narrower integration ecosystem than Fireflies
- No real-time transcription
- Visible bot joins meetings (some clients find this awkward)
- Fewer conferencing platform options
Head-to-Head Comparison
Transcription Accuracy
Winner: Fathom
In our side-by-side testing across 50+ meetings, Fathom consistently produced the most accurate transcripts. The ranking: Fathom (~95%) > Fireflies (~92%) > Otter (~90%). The gap widens with challenging audio—accents, background noise, and multiple speakers talking simultaneously.
That said, all three are good enough for most use cases. The accuracy differences matter most in sales and legal contexts where getting names, numbers, and commitments exactly right is critical.
CRM Integration
Winner: Fireflies
Fireflies supports the most CRM platforms (Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Pipedrive, Freshsales) and offers the deepest automation—auto-populating specific fields, logging call outcomes, and triggering workflows. Fathom’s CRM integration is strong but limited to Salesforce and HubSpot. Otter’s CRM support is the most basic of the three.
If your team lives in a CRM and you want meeting intelligence to flow into it automatically, Fireflies is the clear choice.
Ease of Use
Winner: Fathom
Fathom’s setup takes two minutes. The interface is clean and doesn’t overwhelm you with options. Otter is also straightforward but has more settings to navigate. Fireflies is the most powerful but also the most complex—expect to spend 30–60 minutes configuring it properly for your team’s workflow.
For the person who just wants an AI notetaker for Zoom that works out of the box, Fathom is the answer.
Free Tier Comparison
Winner: Fathom
| Otter Free | Fireflies Free | Fathom Free | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minutes | 300/month | 800 total (lifetime) | Unlimited |
| Meeting Length Cap | 30 min | None | None |
| AI Summaries | Limited | Limited | 5/month |
| Recordings | Limited | Limited | Unlimited |
| File Uploads | 3 lifetime | None | None |
Fathom’s free plan is the most usable long-term. Unlimited recordings and transcripts mean you can use it indefinitely for basic meeting capture, and 5 AI summaries per month is enough for occasional use. Otter’s free plan is hobbled by the 30-minute meeting cap. Fireflies’ lifetime limit of 800 minutes makes it essentially a trial.
Team Collaboration
Winner: Otter
Otter’s real-time collaborative editing is unique among the three. Team members can highlight, comment, and annotate transcripts as the meeting happens. Fireflies has Channels for sharing clips and transcripts, which works well for async teams. Fathom’s collaboration features are the most basic—shared playlists and team workspaces on paid plans.
Decision Framework: Which One Should You Pick?
Pick Otter.ai If…
- You need real-time transcription during meetings (accessibility, following along, multitasking)
- Your team wants to collaboratively edit notes during calls
- You’re on a tight budget and need the lowest-cost paid plan
- You want a solid mobile app for recording in-person conversations
- Live captions and real-time collaboration matter more than post-meeting automation
Pick Fireflies.ai If…
- You’re a sales team that needs meetings to automatically update your CRM
- You need to integrate with a wide range of tools (Asana, Slack, Jira, Pipedrive, etc.)
- You want conversation analytics—talk ratios, sentiment, topic tracking
- Your team uses conferencing platforms beyond Zoom/Meet/Teams (Webex, Dialpad, RingCentral)
- You need the most powerful automation workflows from meeting data
Pick Fathom If…
- You’re an individual or small team that wants the best AI notetaker for Zoom with minimal setup
- Transcription accuracy is your top priority
- You want the most generous free tier to get started without paying
- You value a clean, simple interface over feature depth
- You primarily use Zoom, Google Meet, or Teams and don’t need exotic integrations
Honorable Mentions
While Otter, Fireflies, and Fathom dominate the conversation, a few other AI meeting assistants are worth considering depending on your needs:
- tl;dv — Strong free tier with unlimited recordings, excellent for teams already using HubSpot. Solid alternative to Fathom with better multi-language support (30+ languages).
- Krisp — Takes a different approach by focusing on noise cancellation alongside meeting transcription. Great if you frequently take calls in noisy environments.
- Avoma — Built specifically for revenue teams. Combines meeting intelligence with coaching tools and deal analytics. More expensive but deeper than Fireflies for sales-specific use cases.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which AI meeting assistant has the best free plan?
Fathom offers the most generous free tier with unlimited meeting recordings and transcripts, plus 5 AI summaries per month. There’s no time cap per meeting and no monthly minute limit. Otter’s free plan caps you at 300 minutes/month with a 30-minute meeting limit, and Fireflies gives you just 800 minutes total for the lifetime of your account.
Can I use these AI notetakers with Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams?
Yes—all three tools (Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai, and Fathom) support Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Fireflies additionally supports Webex, Dialpad, RingCentral, and several other conferencing platforms. If you use a less common platform, Fireflies is the safest bet.
Do these tools send a bot to join my meeting?
Yes, all three typically join meetings via a bot that appears as a participant. Some clients and colleagues may find this surprising or distracting. Fathom and Fireflies both show a visible bot; Otter’s OtterPilot does the same. It’s good practice to let participants know a recording bot will join before the meeting starts.
Which is the best AI meeting assistant for sales teams?
For sales teams, Fireflies.ai generally offers the best value thanks to its deep CRM integrations (Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho, Pipedrive), conversation analytics, and automated field population. Fathom is a strong runner-up, particularly for individual sales reps who want excellent transcription accuracy and HubSpot/Salesforce integration without the complexity. For enterprise sales teams with coaching needs, also consider Avoma.
Are AI meeting transcriptions accurate enough for legal or compliance use?
While all three tools have improved significantly, none should be treated as a verbatim legal record without human review. Fathom’s ~95% accuracy is the highest, but that still means roughly 1 in 20 words may be wrong. For legal, compliance, or medical contexts, use AI transcription as a starting draft and have a human verify critical sections.
Can I use more than one AI notetaker at the same time?
Technically yes, but it’s not recommended. Running multiple bots in the same meeting can cause audio interference, confuse speaker identification, and annoy participants with multiple “bot joined” notifications. Pick one tool and commit to it for your team.
Final Thoughts
The best AI meeting assistant in 2026 depends on what you actually need from it. There’s no single winner across the board—each tool has carved out a clear niche:
Fathom delivers the best transcription accuracy and the cleanest experience for individuals and small teams. Its free tier is genuinely usable long-term. Fireflies is the powerhouse for teams that need their meeting data to flow into CRMs, project management tools, and automated workflows. Otter remains the king of real-time transcription and live collaboration.
Our recommendation for most people? Start with Fathom’s free plan. It’s the easiest way to experience what a modern AI notetaker can do without spending a dime. If you outgrow it and need team features or deeper integrations, evaluate Fireflies. And if live transcription is non-negotiable for your workflow, Otter is still the only real option.
Whichever you choose, the days of frantically scribbling notes while trying to stay present in a meeting are over. That alone is worth the upgrade.