Compare
Recordist against the meeting assistants you already know.
It's the same job (recording, transcribing and summarising) done in a very different place. Symbols carry text for screen readers; every cell with a mark also says Yes, No or Partial.
Supernormal, Krisp, Granola, Otter, Fathom, Fireflies, Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, Slack, Claude, Cursor and other product names on this page are trademarks of their respective owners. They are used here only to identify those products for comparison. Recordist is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any of them. Statements about other products describe their publicly documented behaviour as of the date shown; tell us at [email protected] if something is out of date and we will correct it. Last checked September 2026; verify on their sites.
| Feature | Recordist | Supernormal | Krisp | Granola | Otter | Fathom | Fireflies |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joins call as a bot | No: Never | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Works without internet | Yes: Fully | No | Partial: Noise cancellation only | No | No | No | No |
| Audio stays on device | Yes: Always | No | Partial: Transcript sent for notes | No | No | No | No |
| Transcription location | On your machine (Whisper) | Their servers | On device | Their servers | Their servers | Their servers | Their servers |
| Speaker separation | Partial: Dual-channel: you vs. them; remote speakers are one label today | Yes | Partial: You vs. others | Partial: Me vs. them | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AI notes | Yes: Local model or your own key | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Search | Yes: Offline full-text | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes: Local, included | No | No | Partial: Hosted, paid plans | Partial: Hosted, enterprise | No | Partial: Hosted |
| A2A agent | Yes: Local Agent Card | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Free tier | Yes: Unlimited recording; 14-day Pro trial, then 3 AI notes/mo | Yes: Limited | Yes: Daily minute cap | Partial: 25-meeting trial | Yes: 300 min/mo | Yes: Limited AI | Yes: Limited credits |
| Price | Pro $6/mo or $48/yr · Team $9/user | Pro $18/user/mo | Core $16/mo | $14/user/mo | $8.33/user/mo annual, 90-min cap | Premium $16/mo annual | ~$10–19/user/mo |
yes · no · partial. Data as of September 2026; verify on their sites. Feature notes reflect each product's published documentation at that time.
Why the columns look the way they do
Where the audio goes
The bot-based tools here stream the meeting to their servers to transcribe it. Recordist writes audio files to your disk and transcribes them there. That isn't a setting you can flip; it's how each product is built.
Who sees the recorder
A bot is a participant. It appears in the roster, it can be admitted or refused, and it tells everyone a vendor is listening. Recordist is invisible to the platform because it never touches the platform.
What happens offline
On a train or in a building with bad Wi-Fi, the cloud tools in this table stop working. Recordist records, transcribes and, with the local model, summarises without a network connection.
What your agents can reach
Recordist includes an MCP server and an A2A agent that run on your own machine. Claude, Cursor or your own agent can query meetings without a hosted integration.
A fair word about the others
Krisp's noise cancellation is excellent and works offline. Granola's editor is a pleasure to write in. Otter, Fathom, Fireflies and Supernormal have integrations Recordist does not, particularly with CRMs, and Fireflies and Granola offer hosted MCP servers. If you need those and are comfortable with a cloud transcript, they are good tools. If the meeting must stay on your machine, they can't help you.