Otter.ai vs Fireflies: an honest 2026 comparison

Otter.ai and Fireflies look like rivals, but they are two versions of the same design. Both default to sending a named AI bot into your meeting as a visible participant, both lean hard on AI summaries and a chat-with-your-meeting assistant, and both throttle their free tiers in ways that push you to pay. So the decision that matters is not Otter vs Fireflies on a feature checklist. It is how each one captures the meeting, because the bot model is exactly what produced Otter's 2025 privacy litigation and the "who is this stranger in my call" awkwardness. Pick Otter if you want live in-room transcription and a deep mobile and import ecosystem. Pick Fireflies if you want a cheaper per-seat price, conversation analytics, and a lot of integrations. But if you live in Google Meet and want notes without a bot in the room, a browser-based recorder is the better category, which is the case I make at the end.

Otter.ai vs Fireflies at a glance

Here is the one-paragraph verdict before the reasoning. Otter is the live-transcription pick: you read the words as people talk, it captures well on mobile and in person, and it imports a lot of existing audio. Fireflies is the price-and-integration pick: a cheaper paid seat, conversation intelligence, and a long list of CRM and automation hooks. Both put a named bot in your meeting by default, and both offer a quieter secondary capture mode that most users never find.

300 min/mo

Otter Free, plus a 30-min meeting cap

$16.99

Otter Pro/mo, 1,200 min/mo + 90-min cap

400 min

Fireflies Free storage cap (per team)

$18

Fireflies Pro/seat/mo ($10 annual)

The single comparison that drives the rest of this post is how each tool captures the meeting. Here is the spine.

Otter.ai

• Default capture: Notetaker auto-joins from your calendar as 'Notetaker (Otter.ai)'
• Bot-free option: Google Meet pop-up offers on-device recording with no bot
• Free tier: 300 min/mo, 30-min meeting cap, 3 lifetime imports
• Paid entry: Pro $16.99/user/mo ($8.33 annual), 1,200 min/mo
• Meter: minutes per month plus a hard per-meeting cap (90 min on Pro)
• Leans: live transcription, mobile and in-person capture, imports, Salesforce / HubSpot

Fireflies.ai

• Default capture: 'Fireflies.ai Notetaker' (Fred) joins as a visible participant
• Bot-free option: Google Meet SDK capture or Chrome extension, no bot tile
• Free tier: unlimited transcription, but only 400 minutes of storage per team
• Paid entry: Pro $18/seat/mo ($10 annual), 8,000 min storage/seat
• Meter: storage minutes and AI credits, not a per-meeting length cap
• Leans: conversation analytics, AI credits, a long integration list

How each tool actually records your meeting

This is the part most comparisons skip, and it is the part that should decide your choice.

Otter records by default with a Notetaker bot. OtterPilot automatically joins Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams calls from your connected calendar and shows up as a participant whose name combines your first name with "Notetaker (Otter.ai)" (Otter, as of 2026-06-13). For Google Meet specifically, Otter shows a pop-up that lets you either send the Notetaker as a participant or record on your device with no bot. The bot is the default and the quiet mode is the thing you have to opt into.

Fireflies works the same way. By default a bot named "Fireflies.ai Notetaker" (you may know it as Fred) joins your call from your calendar and sits in the participant list, which Fireflies says it does on purpose so the recording is visible for compliance (Fireflies Knowledge Base, as of 2026-06-13). Fireflies offers two bot-free paths: a Google Meet SDK capture that records without adding a tile, and a Chrome extension that records your tab. As with Otter, the bot is the default and bot-free is the opt-in.

Google Meet

Participants (3)

• You
• Client
• Notetaker (Otter.ai) bot

The flow makes the difference obvious. A bot tool routes your meeting through a calendar connection and an attendee that joins on your behalf. A browser recorder captures the audio that is already playing in your tab.

1. 1

   Bot tool: connect your calendar

   Otter or Fireflies watches your calendar for upcoming calls.

2. 2

   Bot joins as a participant

   A named tile ('Notetaker (Otter.ai)' or 'Fireflies.ai Notetaker') enters the meeting and starts recording.

3. 3

   Audio leaves the room

   The bot streams your meeting to the vendor for transcription and summaries.

4. 4

   Browser recorder: just open Meet

   A Chrome extension captures the audio in your tab. Nothing is added to the participant list.

Why does a bot in the room matter beyond awkwardness? Consent. When an unfamiliar attendee appears in a client or candidate call and starts recording, the people on the other end did not necessarily agree to that. That exact mechanic is now in court.

Pricing and limits, decoded

List prices are easy to compare and almost always misleading, because the two tools meter you differently. Otter counts transcription minutes per month and adds a hard per-meeting length cap. Fireflies advertises unlimited transcription, then meters you on storage minutes and AI credits instead. Read past the "unlimited" word and find the real ceiling.

Otter tiers (as of 2026-06-13):

• Free Basic: 300 minutes per month, 30 minutes per meeting, 3 lifetime audio/video imports.
• Pro: $16.99 per user per month billed monthly ($8.33 billed annually), 1,200 minutes per month, 90 minutes per meeting, 10 imports per month.
• Business: $30 per user per month billed monthly ($19.99 annually), unlimited monthly transcription, 4-hour per-meeting cap.
• Enterprise: custom, adds SSO/SCIM and a HIPAA add-on.

Fireflies tiers (as of 2026-06-13):

• Free: unlimited transcription, but only 400 minutes of storage shared across the team and limited AI summaries.
• Pro: $18 per seat per month billed monthly ($10 billed annually), 8,000 minutes of storage per seat, unlimited AI summaries, 20 AI credits.
• Business: $29 per seat per month billed monthly ($19 annually), unlimited storage, 30 AI credits, video recording, conversation intelligence.
• Enterprise: $39 per seat per year (annual only), 50 AI credits, SSO/SCIM, HIPAA compliance, custom retention.

A worked example. Say you run four 60-minute meetings and one 2-hour planning session in a typical week, repeated four weeks a month. That is roughly 24 hours, or about 1,440 minutes. On Otter Pro (1,200 minutes per month) you are over the monthly meter, and the 2-hour session also hits the 90-minute cap every single week, so it gets clipped. On Fireflies Pro you would not hit a per-meeting cap, but 24 hours a month of stored recordings (1,440 minutes) chews through the 8,000-minute storage allowance in roughly five and a half months before older meetings age out. For long or back-to-back meetings, watch the cap on Otter and the storage runway on Fireflies, not the headline price.

Accuracy and languages: correcting the old myths

Older comparisons of these two tools love hard numbers like "Otter 95% accuracy vs Fireflies 90%" and fixed language counts. Drop both.

In practice, transcription accuracy depends much more on audio quality and speaker separation than on which brand you picked. Clear individual audio (everyone on their own mic, low background noise) transcribes well on either tool. A single room mic picking up four overlapping voices transcribes poorly on either tool. If accuracy is your top concern, fix the audio source first. The brand difference is small next to that.

Features and integrations where they diverge

Once you get past capture and pricing, the two tools point in different directions.

Otter leans toward live capture and breadth of input. You can read the transcript as the conversation happens, capture in-person meetings from your phone, and import a backlog of existing recordings (within the import limits above). It connects to Salesforce and HubSpot for sales teams. If you want to glance at the running transcript mid-call or you record a lot of in-room conversations, Otter is built for that. If you sell, see how a notetaker fits the workflow in our Scribbl for sales page and how to improve sales productivity.

Fireflies leans toward analytics and a long integration list. It surfaces conversation intelligence (talk time, sentiment, topic trackers), meters AI work through credits and the AskFred assistant, and connects to a wide range of CRMs, project tools, and automation platforms. If your job is to pipe meeting outputs into other systems without manual copy-paste, that integration breadth is the stronger fit. See what is conversation intelligence and best workflow automation software for that angle.

On security and compliance, both are SOC 2 Type II certified, and both gate HIPAA behind their top tier: Otter through Enterprise sales, Fireflies on its Enterprise plan (vendor docs, as of 2026-06-13). So if you are in healthcare and assume a mid-tier paid plan covers HIPAA, it does not on either tool. You need the enterprise tier. For a wider view, our best meeting transcription software roundup compares the field.

When Otter wins, when Fireflies wins

• Choose Otter for live transcription you read during the call, strong mobile and in-person capture, a big library of imports, and Salesforce or HubSpot sync.
• Choose Fireflies for a cheaper paid seat, conversation analytics, AI credits, and a long list of CRM and automation integrations.
• Either way, accept that the default experience puts a named bot in your meeting, and decide that on purpose rather than by accident.

If those tradeoffs both feel like compromises, that is because they are compromises of the same model. There is a third category that sidesteps the bot question entirely.

The third option: a no-bot recorder for Google Meet

If your meetings happen in Google Meet, the cleanest answer is a recorder that runs in the browser and never sends a bot at all. Scribbl records, transcribes, and summarizes Google Meet from a Chrome extension. Nothing joins the participant list, so there is no stranger tile and no consent ambiguity from an unexpected attendee. You get a searchable transcript, AI notes, and action items after the call, and you can chat with the transcript afterward.

The pricing model is also different by design. The free Lite plan covers 10 meetings per month with unlimited meeting length and AI notes plus action items (recordings expire after two months). Pro is $13 per user per month billed annually ($29 monthly) with unlimited meetings and AI chat, with no per-minute meter and no per-meeting length cap, so the Otter "90-minute cutoff" and the Fireflies storage runway both stop being your problem. Team adds Zoom and Microsoft Teams alongside Meet, with automated sharing and admin controls.

The honest caveat: Scribbl is Google Meet first, with Zoom and Teams available on the Team plan. If you record mostly on Zoom or Teams as an individual today, Otter's and Fireflies' multi-platform coverage is a fair reason to pick one of them for now. But for Google Meet users who want notes without putting anything in the room, this is the category we recommend. For a deeper look, see our Google Meet AI note taker guide and how to record Google Meet.

Frequently asked questions

Is Otter or Fireflies cheaper?

Fireflies is cheaper per seat at the top of each plan when billed annually: Pro is $10 per seat per month annually versus Otter Pro at $8.33 annually but $16.99 billed monthly (both as of 2026-06-13). The catch is the meter, not the sticker. Otter Pro caps each meeting at 90 minutes and gives you 1,200 minutes a month. Fireflies advertises unlimited transcription but limits stored minutes per seat. Price the plan against how long and how often you actually meet. See our best free transcription software guide for the free-tier angle.

Does Otter or Fireflies put a bot in my meeting?

Both do, by default. Otter's Notetaker auto-joins from your calendar as "Notetaker (Otter.ai)," and Fireflies' bot joins as "Fireflies.ai Notetaker" (also called Fred), which Fireflies keeps visible on purpose for compliance (vendor docs, as of 2026-06-13). Otter offers an on-device, no-bot option for Google Meet, and Fireflies offers a Google Meet SDK capture and a Chrome extension, but in both cases the bot is the default you have to opt out of. A browser recorder like Scribbl never adds a participant at all.

Which is more accurate, Otter or Fireflies?

Neither company publishes a verified accuracy percentage, so any precise "X% vs Y%" claim you see is unsupported. In real use, accuracy is driven far more by audio quality and speaker separation than by which tool you choose. Clean individual mics transcribe well on either one; a noisy shared room mic transcribes poorly on either one.

Is Fireflies or Otter HIPAA compliant?

Only on the enterprise tier for both. Each is SOC 2 Type II certified, but HIPAA is arranged through the top plan (Otter via Enterprise sales, Fireflies on its Enterprise plan) and is not included on the free, Pro, or Business tiers (vendor docs, as of 2026-06-13). Do not assume a mid-tier paid plan covers HIPAA on either tool.

How do I compare these against MeetGeek or Read.ai?

They share the same bot-based model, so the same capture question applies. See our MeetGeek vs Otter.ai and Read.ai vs Otter.ai comparisons, and the broader best meeting recording software roundup, to place all of them on one map.