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Switching from a meeting bot?

Bring your months with you. Send us a receipt from the notetaker you pay for, and we give you the same number of months of Pro, up to twelve. No card.

  • A bot in the participant list.
  • Your client's voice on servers nobody in the call chose.
  • A recording that starts because a calendar said so.

That was the cost of meeting notes. It no longer has to be. Recordist keeps the record on your laptop and, by default, asks before every call.

Bring your months What Recordist does See the comparison

What Recordist does

Said of Recordist alone.

  1. 01

    Nothing joins the call.

    Recordist records your laptop’s own microphone and sound. Nothing is added to the participant list, and nobody has to let a stranger in.

  2. 02

    It asks before it records.

    By default a card asks when a call starts: Record this meeting? Nothing is recorded until you say yes. Automatic recording is a list you fill in yourself.

  3. 03

    The record stays with you.

    The audio is written to your disk, transcribed there and kept there, and no plan or setting changes that. On a train or in a building with bad Wi-Fi it still records, transcribes and searches, and the built-in engine still writes the notes.

  4. 04

    Your assistant reads it there too.

    The MCP server and the A2A agent run on your laptop and read your own record, so Claude, Cursor or an agent of your own can ask about a meeting without a hosted integration.

  5. 05

    A team buys it in one go.

    Three to forty-nine people, one checkout, a personal key for each, and every record on its own laptop. Managed settings for the laptops IT manages.

Five questions to ask any notetaker

Every answer about another product comes from that company's own pages, read on 25 October 2026 and listed under Sources. Plans change, so check their pages before you decide.

Does a bot join your call?

Recordist
Never. It records on your laptop, so nothing joins the participant list.
Otter
Its Notetaker joins as a visible guest. Its desktop app can record without it.
Fireflies
Its Notetaker joins as a participant. Its desktop app and Chrome extension can record without it.
Fathom
Its notetaker joins as a visible participant. Capture without a bot is a beta on Mac.
tl;dv
With auto-recording on, its bot joins your scheduled meetings. Its desktop app records audio without it.
Granola
No bot, on any plan.
Read AI
It joins as a participant, or shows its logo in the meeting window. Its desktop app can record audio without it.

Where does your client's audio go?

Recordist
It stays on your laptop. It is transcribed there, and no Recordist server holds it.
Otter
Up to Otter's cloud. Its privacy policy names Amazon Web Services, based in the US, for storage, and lists training its AI on de-identified recordings and on transcripts.
Fireflies
Its cloud in the US, on AWS and Google Cloud. It says it does not train AI models on your data.
Fathom
Its service, with data stored in the US. It trains its own models on de-identified data unless you opt out.
tl;dv
Its service, with data hosted mainly in the EU, including Germany and Finland. It says it does not train AI models on your recordings.
Granola
To cloud providers that transcribe it, then deleted; notes are kept on AWS in the US. It trains on anonymised data unless you opt out.
Read AI
Its service, on AWS in Virginia, in the US. Training on your data is off unless you opt in.

Does it ask before it records?

Recordist
Yes. A card asks before each call, and nothing is captured until you click Record. Automatic recording is a list you fill in yourself.
Otter
It can join your calendar meetings by itself and record without asking each time.
Fireflies
By default it joins all your calendar meetings and emails the recap to everyone on the invite.
Fathom
It can record your calendar meetings by itself. It says it never records silently, and the people in the call are told.
tl;dv
Recording all meetings is pre-selected when you set it up. It can ask guests for consent on a page before the meeting.
Granola
You start it for each meeting. It never joins or records by itself.
Read AI
It is set to join all your meetings by default. Anyone in the call can opt out from the chat or a link, and it leaves and deletes what it captured.

What is free?

Recordist
Recording, transcription and search, with no time limit. 7 days of every Pro feature, then 3 AI notes a month.
Otter
Basic: 300 minutes a month, up to 30 minutes a conversation, and your 25 most recent conversations.
Fireflies
Unlimited transcription while it joins your meetings by itself, limited storage, and no downloads.
Fathom
Unlimited recordings and transcripts. Its advanced AI summaries are limited.
tl;dv
Unlimited recordings, kept for 3 months. Full AI notes for 10 meetings, then for the opening 10 minutes of each.
Granola
Basic: your last 30 days of meeting history.
Read AI
5 meeting reports a month, each up to an hour.

Can you leave with your data?

Recordist
Yes, on every plan. Transcripts and notes export as Markdown, text, SRT, VTT or JSON, and the audio is a WAV file on your laptop.
Otter
TXT and MP3 on Basic. PDF, DOCX and SRT on paid plans.
Fireflies
Downloads from Pro up. A full export by request on every plan.
Fathom
Recordings download as MP4. Transcripts copy to the clipboard, or come out through its API.
tl;dv
Downloads need a paid plan, and a transcript comes out by copying it. Free recordings can be downloaded in the 4 weeks before they are deleted.
Granola
A CSV of your notes and transcripts, by email. It keeps no audio to export.
Read AI
Sections of a report download. Video needs Enterprise.

Where they do more

If you need one of these today, they are the better choice, and we would rather say so.

Switch Credit

Bring your months with you.

If you pay for another meeting notetaker, send us a receipt. We give you the same number of months of Recordist Pro, up to twelve, at no cost and with no card. A person reads every receipt.

What Pro includes, and what it costs once your months end, is on the pricing page. Recording, transcription and search stay free with no time limit either way.

Loyalty earned, not demanded.

Everything you record exports as plain files. Leave any time.

Transcripts and notes export as Markdown, plain text, SRT, VTT or JSON on every plan, and the audio is kept as WAV files in a folder on your laptop, for 30 days or as long as you set in Settings.

What happens next

  1. 01Choose the notetaker and the months you paid for, and add the receipt: a photo, a screenshot or a PDF.
  2. 02Confirm your request from the email we send, within 24 hours.
  3. 03A person reads your receipt and writes back within two business days.
  4. 04We send a Pro key for the months the receipt shows, up to twelve, to paste into Settings, then License. Nothing to pay, and nothing renews.
  5. 05When the months end, Recordist moves to the Free plan by itself and deletes nothing.

The rules

One Switch Credit for each person, for requests sent by 30 November 2026. The months are the ones your receipt shows, up to twelve, and a person decides each request; we may say no when a receipt doesn't show a payment to a meeting notetaker. The credit is a Pro key at no cost: it has no cash value, and it can't be sold, transferred or exchanged. Keeping or cancelling your other subscription is up to you. The Terms, section 3, cover programme keys, and Privacy, section 3.1, says what we keep and for how long.

Ask for your months

The notetaker you pay for

We ask for what the decision needs and nothing more. A person reads your receipt, and it is deleted the moment we decide, or within a day if you don't confirm. Your address is used to answer this request and for nothing else. Privacy, section 3.1

Prefer email? Write to support@recordist.app with Switch Credit in the subject and your receipt attached. The same rules apply.

Sources

Each answer about another product comes from these pages, all read on 25 October 2026.

Otter
Fireflies
Fathom
tl;dv
Granola
Read AI

Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, tl;dv, Granola, Read AI, Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, HubSpot, Salesforce and other product names on this page are trademarks of their owners, used here to identify those products. Recordist is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any of them. What this page says about another product is what that company's own pages said on the date shown. If something is out of date, tell us at hello@recordist.app and we will correct it.

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Recordist

Recordist for Mac is downloading.

Thank you for trying Recordist. Three small steps and it is ready before your next call. Open it now, so it is set up in time.

  1. 1Open the download and drag Recordist to Applications, then open it from there.
  2. 2Allow the microphone and system audio when your Mac asks, so both sides of the call are heard. Calendar is optional: it names your meetings and who is in them.
  3. 3Close the window when you like. Recordist waits in the menu bar and, when your next call starts, asks: Record this meeting? Nothing is recorded until you say yes.

The first time it opens, Recordist downloads its speech model: 142 MB in English, 466 MB for other languages. That usually takes a minute or two, and you can record once it finishes. The notes engine, 1 to 3 GB, follows in the background.

While it downloads, see a finished call in your browser

Every install includes 7 days of Pro, so your first calls are written up in full.

No call today? Import a recording you already have: in Recordist, Meetings, then Import audio. One of 10 minutes or more starts your 7 days of Pro, and the notes follow the transcript.

While it downloads, get your Free key. 10 AI notes a month instead of 3, with no end date. Optional: your download has already started.

Two emails: a link to confirm, then a copy of your key. Nothing else unless you ask. We never sell or share your address, and Resend, our email service, sends them for us. Privacy

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