Scribbl vs tl;dv (tldv): The Honest 2026 Comparison

If you are choosing between Scribbl and tl;dv (often typed "tldv"), here is the short answer. Pick Scribbl if you do not want a bot ever joining your calls, especially on external client, sales, and candidate meetings, and you want notes wired into ChatGPT or Claude so the follow-up actually gets done; it is botless, works with Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams, and starts free with no credit card. Pick tl;dv if you want a video-first recorder with a searchable clip library for sales-call review, support for 30-plus languages, and a visible notetaker bot in the meeting is acceptable. Both tools are genuinely good. The one decision that changes your day to day is the capture method: a bot in the room, or nothing. The rest of this comparison breaks it down row by row, with dated June 2026 prices and free-tier caveats for both.

Scribbl vs tl;dv at a glance

Both tools turn a live meeting into a transcript, a summary, and action items, and both have loyal users for good reason. Where they split is the question your attendees notice first: does something join the call. The matrix below is organized around the decisions buyers actually make, with real, dated numbers for both sides so you are not stuck on either vendor's pricing page. We make Scribbl, so treat its column as our pitch and the rest as a fair-but-interested read; every tl;dv figure reflects publicly published behavior as of June 2026 and should be confirmed on tl;dv's own site, since these change. Read the table, then jump to the section for whichever row decides it for you.

Feature	Scribbl	tl;dv
No bot ever joins the call		–
Nothing announced or emailed to attendees		–
Google Meet + Zoom + Microsoft Teams	Meet free; Zoom/Teams on paid
How it captures	Chrome extension + desktop app	Notetaker bot joins
Free plan, no credit card	~10 meetings/mo	Unlimited recordings, ~10 AI notes
Free recordings kept	Video expires ~2 months	Auto-deleted after ~3 months
Entry paid price	~$13/user/mo annual	~$18/user/mo annual
AI summary + action items
Connects to ChatGPT / Claude		–
Video clips + highlight reels	Records video
Languages with translation	English-first	30+ languages
CRM sync (Salesforce / HubSpot)	Via your AI / export	On higher tiers
User rating	4.9/5 G2 (686+); 5.0 on 3,000+ CWS	Well reviewed, larger base

The one decision that matters: bot vs botless

This is the whole comparison in one section. tl;dv generally relies on a notetaker bot that joins your meeting, records the video, and produces a summary and clips afterward. When it works, the recordings and highlight reels are genuinely useful, and sales teams are right to like them. The trade is that the bot is visible. Other attendees see it join, it may need to be admitted, and on client or external calls it can feel like a recording device showed up uninvited. A visible bot in the room is one of the most common complaints people raise about bot-based notetakers in public reviews.

Scribbl takes the botless route. It captures the meeting from your own session, so there is no extra participant in the attendee list, nothing is announced when the call starts, and no notification is sent to the people you are meeting with. For sales calls, client meetings, interviews, and any conversation where a visible recording bot would change the tone, botless capture is the difference between getting notes and skipping the tool entirely. If you want the deeper argument, see our explainer on the botless AI notetaker.

tl;dv

• Capture: a notetaker bot joins the meeting
• In the room: a participant is added and visible
• Built around: recorded video, clips, and call review
• Languages: 30-plus with translation
• Free tier: unlimited recordings, ~10 AI notes, auto-delete ~3 months

Scribbl

• Capture: botless, from your own session
• In the room: nothing joins, nothing announced
• Built around: clean notes and action items
• Languages: English-first (confirm for your language)
• Free tier: free Lite plan, ~10 meetings/mo, no credit card

Google Meet

Participants (2)

You

Client

No bot in the room. Scribbl captures from your side.

Platforms: Google Meet first vs broad bot coverage

Platform fit is the second pivot. Scribbl is built around Google Meet first. The Chrome extension captures Meet with nothing in the room, and the desktop app extends the same botless idea to Zoom and Microsoft Teams; Zoom and Teams come in on the paid tier. If your week is mostly Google Meet, Scribbl is the most natural fit on the market, because it lives right where you already work and never has to fight Meet's bot-blocking.

tl;dv covers the major platforms broadly with its joining bot across Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. If your meetings are spread evenly across all three and you do not mind a participant joining, that breadth is a real strength. The honest read: both tools cover all three platforms, so the platform question is really about how you want capture to happen on each one, botless from your side or a bot that joins.

Free plan and pricing reality

Let us be straight, because the free tier is where tl;dv is strong. tl;dv's free plan is generous on recording. As of June 2026 it allows unlimited recordings and transcription in 30-plus languages, with two real catches: AI summaries are capped at roughly 10 total, and recordings auto-delete after about three months, and a visible bot joins each call. If a no-cost, high-recording ceiling is your top priority and a bot is fine, that is a legitimate reason to choose tl;dv, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. tl;dv's paid plans run higher per seat: tl;dv Pro is around $18/user/mo billed annually (about $29/mo on monthly billing), with higher tiers adding more AI and CRM sync.

Scribbl starts free too, with no credit card, and what you get on day one is botless notes. The free Lite plan is capped at about 10 meetings a month, and recorded video expires after roughly 2 months, so heavy recorders will outgrow it faster than tl;dv's free tier. Scribbl Pro starts at roughly $13/user/mo billed annually (with a 5-seat minimum, so about $65/mo entry) and runs up to around $20/user/mo, adding Zoom and Microsoft Teams support; larger teams move to the Team tier. You can confirm current plans on the pricing page.

The honest takeaway on money: if you only care about a free recording ceiling, tl;dv has the edge; if you care about cost per seat, Scribbl is cheaper at the paid entry point. Both are free to start, and price is rarely the row that should decide it. The durable difference is still the capture method: tl;dv's plans give you video-first, bot-based recording; Scribbl's give you notes with no bot in the room. Decide on the in-meeting experience first, then weigh price only if you outgrow free.

After the call: connect to the AI you already use

There is a second difference that matters once the call ends. Most notetakers, tl;dv included, give you a summary, clips, and an in-app assistant, all inside their own app. Scribbl goes further by connecting your meetings to the AI you already use, ChatGPT or Claude, so the work gets done, not just the notes. You can ask your own assistant to draft the follow-up email in your voice, pull the decisions into a project tracker, or answer a question across several past meetings at once. The notes are the input; the work is the output. With tl;dv, the AI and clips live behind tl;dv's own interface and sync to CRMs on higher tiers; with Scribbl, your meetings flow into the assistant you already trust.

Scribbl

In ChatGPT or Claude

You: Draft the follow-up from today's client call.

Assistant: Here is a recap, the two decisions, and next steps for each owner.

Video, clips, and languages: where tl;dv leads

Let us give tl;dv its due, because this is its home turf. tl;dv is built around recorded video. It keeps a searchable video library, lets you cut clips and highlight reels from a call, and is popular with sales and revenue teams for coaching and call review. It also supports 30-plus languages with translation, which makes it the clear pick for international or multilingual teams, and it publishes a high headline accuracy figure (around 96%; treat that as a vendor claim and test it on a real call). If shareable video clips, a call-review library, and many languages are the things you care about most, tl;dv is the stronger tool, full stop.

Scribbl records video as well, but it is built around clean notes and action items with no bot in the room, not a clip-editing workflow, and it is English-first, so confirm support for your language before you commit. If your job is sales-call review across many languages, tl;dv wins this section. If your job is getting accurate notes without a participant on the call and handing the meeting to your own AI, Scribbl wins.

Accuracy and note quality

Both tools produce a clean transcript, a structured summary, and action items, and most users rate the quality highly. We would rather back that up than just assert it. In the public G2 review base for Scribbl (about 686 reviews as of June 2026), ease of use is by far the most-cited strength, with transcription quality praised in over 100 reviews. The honest caveat that comparison pages usually skip is in the complaints: the most common one is accuracy on heavy technical jargon, strong accents, or background noise, and speaker identification gets shaky on busy calls with four or more participants and several accents at once. None of this is unique to Scribbl: independent word-error-rate testing across notetakers shows the whole category degrades on noisy, multi-accent, jargon-heavy audio, so on those large panels no tool is perfect and you should test any of them on a real call first. tl;dv's published ~96% figure is a vendor claim worth verifying on your own audio. For one-on-ones, sales calls, interviews, and small team meetings, which is where most of the work happens, accuracy is rarely the row that decides it.

Pros and cons: an honest look at both

Neither tool is perfect, and a comparison that pretends otherwise is not worth trusting. Here is the fair read on each.

tl;dv pros & cons

• Pro: video-first with clips and a searchable call-review library
• Pro: 30-plus languages with translation for international teams
• Pro: generous free recording ceiling (unlimited recordings)
• Con: a visible bot joins the call, a common external-call objection
• Con: free AI notes capped (~10) and recordings auto-delete after ~3 months; higher per-seat price

Scribbl pros & cons

• Pro: botless, nothing joins or is announced to attendees
• Pro: free plan with no credit card; cheaper paid seat (~$13/user/mo)
• Pro: connects meetings to ChatGPT or Claude so the work gets done
• Con: free Lite caps ~10 meetings/mo and video expires ~2 months
• Con: English-first and not a video-clip workflow; Zoom/Teams need the paid tier

Who each is best for

Pick tl;dv if you want a video-first recorder with shareable clips and a searchable call-review library, you run sales or revenue calls and coach off recordings, you need 30-plus languages with translation for international meetings, and a visible notetaker bot joining the call is not a problem for you or your attendees.

Pick Scribbl if you want dead-simple bot-free recording where nothing ever joins the call, you meet with clients, prospects, or candidates where a recording bot changes the room, you live mostly in Google Meet (with Zoom and Microsoft Teams on the paid tier), you are comfortable with a free Lite plan around 10 meetings a month (Pro from roughly $13/user/mo annually if you outgrow it), and you want your notes wired into ChatGPT or Claude so the follow-up work actually gets done. Sales teams in particular tend to land here; see Scribbl for sales.

If you are weighing more than two tools, our best tl;dv alternatives guide and our Scribbl vs Otter.ai and Scribbl vs Fathom breakdowns lay out the wider field, including how the bot-based notetakers compare to each other.

Scribbl is rated 5.0 from 3,000 reviews on the Chrome Web Store and is used by more than 10,000 organizations. People who switch almost always say the same thing: they liked their old notetaker fine, but they were tired of a bot joining every external call.

FAQ

What is the main difference between Scribbl and tl;dv?

The capture method. Scribbl is botless: it captures the meeting from your own session through a Chrome extension or desktop app, so no bot ever joins, nothing is announced, and no email goes to attendees. tl;dv typically sends a visible notetaker bot into the call to record video and produce a summary. tl;dv is built around recorded video and clips; Scribbl is built around notes with no participant added, wired into ChatGPT or Claude. Everything else flows from that one decision: whether a bot shows up in the room or not.

Are Scribbl and tl;dv free to start, and what are the catches?

Both have a free plan and neither needs a credit card to begin. tl;dv's free tier is generous on recording (unlimited recordings and transcription in 30-plus languages) but limits AI summaries to roughly 10 total and auto-deletes recordings after about three months, and a visible bot joins the call. Scribbl's free Lite plan caps you at about 10 meetings a month with recorded video expiring after roughly 2 months, but the very first thing you get is botless notes with nothing in the room. If you want the highest free recording ceiling and a bot is fine, tl;dv wins the free tier; if you want notes with no bot, Scribbl does. Confirm current limits on each vendor's pricing page.

How much do Scribbl and tl;dv cost in 2026?

Both start free. As of June 2026, Scribbl's free Lite plan covers about 10 meetings a month with no credit card, and Scribbl Pro starts around $13/user/mo billed annually (with a 5-seat minimum, so roughly $65/mo to start) and runs up to about $20/user/mo, adding Zoom and Microsoft Teams. tl;dv's paid plans are higher per seat: tl;dv Pro is around $18/user/mo billed annually (about $29/mo on monthly billing), with higher tiers for more AI and CRM sync. At the paid entry point Scribbl is the cheaper seat; the bigger gap is the free tier, where tl;dv's unlimited recordings beat Scribbl's 15-meeting cap. Confirm current prices on each vendor's pricing page.

Does Scribbl send a bot into my meeting like tl;dv?

No. Scribbl is botless, so nothing joins the call and nothing is announced to other attendees. tl;dv typically uses a notetaker bot that joins as a visible participant and may need to be admitted. A bot in the room is one of the most common complaints people raise about bot-based notetakers, and it is the main reason people pick a botless tool, especially on client, sales, and external calls where a recording bot changes the tone.

Does Scribbl work with Zoom and Microsoft Teams, or only Google Meet?

Scribbl works with Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams. The Chrome extension covers Google Meet, and the desktop app covers Zoom and Microsoft Teams; Zoom and Teams come in on the paid tier. tl;dv also supports the major platforms with its joining bot. If you split your week across Zoom, Meet, and Teams, both cover you; the practical difference is botless capture from your side versus a bot that joins.

Which is better for video clips and call review, Scribbl or tl;dv?

tl;dv, clearly. tl;dv is built around recorded video: it keeps a searchable video library, lets you cut clips and highlight reels, and is popular with sales and revenue teams for call coaching. Scribbl records video too, but it is built around clean notes and action items with no bot in the room, not a video-editing and clip-sharing workflow. If shareable video clips and a call-review library are your main goal, tl;dv is the stronger pick. If you want notes without a participant added and you would rather hand the meeting to your own AI, Scribbl fits better.

How accurate are Scribbl and tl;dv, and how many languages do they support?

tl;dv publishes a high headline accuracy figure (around 96%) and supports 30-plus languages with translation, which makes it the clear pick for international and multilingual teams. Scribbl produces a clean transcript, summary, and action items, and most users rate quality highly, but like most notetakers it can struggle with heavy technical jargon and speaker identification on busy calls with four or more accents at once. For English-only one-on-ones and small team calls the accuracy gap is small; the moment you need non-English calls, tl;dv's language list is the deciding factor.

How are Scribbl and tl;dv rated by users?

Scribbl carries a strong satisfaction score: about 4.9 out of 5 on G2 across roughly 686 reviews, and the Scribbl Chrome extension separately holds a 5.0 from more than 3,000 ratings on the Chrome Web Store, used by 10,000+ organizations. tl;dv is also well reviewed across G2 and the major review sites. Ratings and review counts move, so check the live G2 listings before you decide. The honest read: both are liked; the gap that actually decides it day to day is the capture method (bot vs botless) and whether you need video clips and many languages, not the star average.

Does Scribbl connect to ChatGPT or Claude?

Yes. Instead of trapping your notes inside its own app, Scribbl connects your meetings to the AI you already use, ChatGPT or Claude, so the work gets done, not just the notes. You can ask your own assistant to draft the follow-up email, pull decisions into a tracker, or answer a question across several past meetings. tl;dv keeps its AI summaries, clips, and assistant features inside the tl;dv app and syncs to CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot on higher tiers.

How do I switch from tl;dv to Scribbl?

There is no migration project. Install the Scribbl Chrome extension (or the desktop app for Zoom and Teams), create a free account with no credit card, and join your next meeting. Scribbl captures from your side with no bot, so you do not have to remove or disable anything in tl;dv first. Run both on one real call if you want a side-by-side before you commit.

Can I use Scribbl without telling people I am recording?

Botless does not mean secret. Recording and consent laws vary by region, and some places require all-party consent. The right move with any tool, Scribbl or tl;dv, is to tell people you are taking AI notes and get consent. Scribbl simply removes the awkward bot from the room; it does not remove your responsibility to be transparent. You can start free at extension.app.scribbl.co/signup.