An Otter.ai alternative that keeps audio on your Mac

Otter is a cloud service: recordings are stored in its cloud and available across its web, desktop and phone apps. Notey records and transcribes on your Mac, keeps the audio on your disk, and sends only transcript text, only when you ask for AI notes.

If you want a notetaker that works for a whole team, on any device, with CRM and project-tool integrations, Otter covers more ground. If you want one where the recording never leaves your Mac, Notey is built for that.

This comparison describes Otter from its own website as of September 2026. Products change; check Otter's site before deciding.

At a glance

How each one captures a meeting

Otter offers two routes. Its meeting agent can be scheduled to "automatically join all your Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet meetings" as a participant. Its desktop app, for Mac and Windows, records "without a bot in the meeting", across Slack huddles, Zoom, Google Meet and in-person conversations. (Otter, Otter desktop)

The agent route has the usual trade-offs of a participant in the call: everyone sees it, hosts can refuse it, and some organisations block it. How meeting bots work explains why. The desktop route avoids those.

Notey has only the second kind. It records your microphone and the sound your Mac plays as two separate tracks, so nothing joins the call and it works with any app. It notices calls in Zoom, Teams, Slack, FaceTime and in Chrome, Safari, Arc and Edge when the browser uses the microphone, and asks on a floating button before saving anything. Bot-free meeting notes covers the two approaches in general.

Where your data goes

Otter

• Recordings are stored on Amazon S3 with AES-256 server-side encryption, according to Otter's privacy and security page. (Otter: privacy and security)
• Model training: Otter says it uses "a proprietary method to de-identify user data before training our models", and that no customer data is used to train its AI service providers' models.
• Transcripts and notes are available in Otter's apps across devices, which is what makes its web and phone apps work.

Notey

• Audio is written to your Mac and read from there. It is not uploaded for transcription, and there is no fallback that sends it.
• Transcription runs on the Mac with Apple's speech recognition. After an English meeting, Notey reads the recording again on your Mac and keeps the words the recognisers agree on.
• AI notes send transcript text, never audio, to Notey's service, which passes it to OpenAI as a processor. That happens when you ask for a note, or when a meeting ends if you turned write-ups on. It is not used for training and Notey does not keep it. (Notey's privacy policy)
• With no account, nothing leaves the Mac.

Neither model is automatically right. A cloud service means your meetings are available on your phone and to colleagues; it also means a vendor holds them. Where does your meeting audio go? lists the questions to ask any notetaker, including this one.

Notes and the AI

Otter produces live transcripts, summaries and action items, and documents features such as custom vocabulary and shared speaker names for teams.

Notey writes nothing until you ask, unless you turn automatic write-ups on. From a finished transcript you can ask for a summary with action items, minutes, a follow-up email, the questions worth asking next, or where the two sides disagreed, and you can ask Notey questions about the meeting. Everything the AI wrote is labelled as AI-generated, and editing it marks it as edited by you.

Speakers

Notey labels your side and the other side from which track the audio arrived on, so it does not need to learn anyone's voice for that. Several voices on the other side are told apart after the recording, and you name them. Recognising people across meetings is off by default; if you switch it on, voices are stored on the Mac and names are only ever suggested.

Otter documents speaker identification and shared speakers across a team workspace.

Working with a team

This is where Otter does much more. Its site lists integrations with CRMs (HubSpot, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics and others), Slack and Microsoft Teams, Notion, Asana, Jira and cloud storage, plus team features such as comments, channels and centralised user management. (Otter integrations, Otter pricing)

Notey has none of that. It is a personal tool: you export a note as Markdown or the transcript as plain text and paste it where your team works. A Team plan exists for billing several people together; it does not add sharing.

Pricing

Otter has a free Basic plan and paid plans; its current prices are on its pricing page.

Notey's free plan records 2 hours a month, with transcription and search, and no account; paid plans record without a cap. AI notes are paid by the hour of meeting summarised. Current prices are on Notey's pricing section.

Which one fits

Otter is likely the better fit if:

• you use Windows, a phone, or the web as well as a Mac;
• your team wants shared transcripts, comments and channels;
• you want notes sent into a CRM, Slack or a project tool;
• you want an agent that joins your scheduled Zoom, Teams and Meet calls automatically.

Notey is likely the better fit if:

• you cannot have client conversations stored with a third-party service;
• you want to record and transcribe with no account and no network;
• you want the recording kept on your own disk, so you can replay any line;
• you want nothing to leave your Mac until you ask for a note.

For how other notetakers compare, including other bot-free ones, see the best AI notetakers for Mac.

Frequently asked questions

Does Otter need a bot to record a meeting?

Not any more. According to Otter's site, its meeting agent can join Zoom, Teams and Google Meet calls, and its Mac and Windows desktop app records without a bot in the meeting.

Where does Otter store recordings?

Otter's privacy and security page says recordings are stored on Amazon S3 with AES-256 server-side encryption. Notey stores recordings on your Mac and does not upload them.

Is Notey an Otter alternative for Windows or iPhone?

No. Notey runs only on Macs with Apple silicon and macOS 26 or later. Otter has desktop apps for Mac and Windows, a web app, and iPhone and Android apps.

Can Notey share notes with my team like Otter?

No. Notey has no shared workspace. You export a note as Markdown or the transcript as plain text and put it wherever your team works. Otter documents channels, comments and shared speakers for teams.