Four Tools, One Decision
If you're evaluating AI meeting notetakers, you'll quickly find yourself comparing the same four names: Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai, Fathom, and Beaver. Each has genuine strengths. Each has real gaps. This comparison cuts through the marketing and tells you what actually matters.
Transcription Quality
Otter.ai: Solid accuracy in clean audio conditions. Speaker diarisation is a known weakness — "Speaker 1/2/3" in transcripts with no automatic assignment is a common complaint. Struggles with heavy accents and technical vocabulary.
Fireflies.ai: Comparable accuracy. Similar issues with speaker attribution in multi-person calls. Technical jargon sometimes requires manual correction.
Fathom: Good accuracy, particularly on Zoom. Teams integration is less consistent. Language-switching mid-call causes problems.
Beaver: High accuracy with strong speaker attribution. Text-only pipeline reduces the noise floor that affects audio-dependent tools. Works consistently across Google Meet and Teams.
AI Features
Otter.ai: Meeting summaries, action items, AI chat. Good basic feature set. Advanced features on paid plans.
Fireflies.ai: Comprehensive AI — summaries, action items, sentiment, custom prompts, conversational Q&A. AI credits are consumed for advanced features and run out faster than expected.
Fathom: AI summaries and action items. Capped at 5 AI meetings/month on the free plan. Customisation is limited on lower tiers.
Beaver: Full AI suite on all plans: executive summary, key decisions, action items with assignees and due dates, commitment tracking, semantic search, and pre-meeting briefings. No AI credit system — everything is included.
Privacy and Data Handling
Otter.ai: Audio stored on Otter's servers. Data may be used for model improvement unless you opt out (opt-out requires Business/Enterprise plan). US data residency default.
Fireflies.ai: Audio stored on AWS. SOC 2 certified. Private storage (BYOS) available on higher plans. Aggregated data used for service improvement.
Fathom: Audio stored on Fathom's infrastructure. No audio training data use stated. GDPR compliant. Visible bot participant in all meetings.
Beaver: Text-only — no audio files created or stored. No data used for AI training. Data never leaves your account without explicit action. GDPR-ready on all plans.
Integrations
Otter.ai: Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, Notion. Good CRM connections. Limited PM tool support.
Fireflies.ai: Extensive — 40+ integrations including most major CRMs, PM tools, and communication platforms. Best integration library of the four.
Fathom: Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, and a growing set. Fewer integrations than Fireflies.
Beaver: Linear, GitHub, Notion, Jira, Asana, Trello, Slack, Discord. Strong PM tool focus — action items push directly to your task tracker with one click.
Pricing (as of early 2026)
| Plan | Otter.ai | Fireflies | Fathom | Beaver |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Yes (limited) | Yes (limited) | Yes (5 AI/mo) | 7-day trial |
| Paid starts from | ~$10/mo | ~$10/mo | ~$15/mo | See pricing |
| AI credit limits | No | Yes | On free plan | No |
The Verdict
Choose Otter.ai if you want the lowest friction setup for individual use and don't have privacy requirements.
Choose Fireflies if you need the broadest integration library and are willing to manage the pricing complexity.
Choose Fathom if you primarily use Zoom, are always the meeting host, and want a solid free-tier starting point.
Choose Beaver if you need reliable speaker attribution, clean privacy posture, pre-meeting context, commitment tracking, and PM tool integrations that actually work — with no AI credit limits or surprise billing.
Try Beaver free for 7 days — no credit card required.
