Best Alternatives to Oats in 2025
Oats is a free, open-source AI meeting notetaker that runs locally on your device, offering private, bot-free note-taking with no subscription required when using an on-device LLM. It supports macOS and Windows, and includes features like enhanced transcription, multi-language support, speaker recognition, assessment, coaching, and auto-tracked follow-ups. While Oats excels in privacy and cost-efficiency, you might seek alternatives for different platforms, additional integrations, or team collaboration features. Here are the best alternatives to Oats.
Otter.ai
Otter.ai is a popular cloud-based meeting notetaker with robust real-time transcription, speaker identification, and collaboration features. It integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, and offers a free tier with limited minutes. However, unlike Oats, it requires a bot to join meetings and stores data in the cloud, which may raise privacy concerns.
Fireflies.ai
Fireflies.ai provides AI-powered meeting notes, transcription, and analytics. It supports multiple languages, integrates with various video conferencing tools, and offers a free plan. It also includes conversation intelligence features like sentiment analysis and topic tracking. However, it relies on a bot and cloud processing, contrasting with Oats' on-device approach.
tl;dv
Record, transcribe & summarize meetings
tl;dv is a free meeting recorder and transcriber for Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. It offers unlimited recordings and transcriptions, timestamps, and highlights. It also provides AI-powered summaries and action items. Like others, it uses a bot and cloud storage, so it's less private than Oats but offers strong collaboration features.
Fathom
Never take notes again
Fathom is a free AI notetaker that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings. It highlights key moments and syncs with CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot. It works with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Fathom is user-friendly and offers a generous free plan, but it's cloud-based and requires a bot, unlike Oats' local processing.
Avoma
Avoma is an AI meeting assistant with transcription, note-taking, and conversation intelligence. It offers automated summaries, action items, and coaching insights. It integrates with various conferencing and CRM platforms. Avoma has a free plan but is primarily cloud-based and bot-dependent, making Oats a better choice for privacy-focused users.
MeetGeek
MeetGeek automatically records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings. It provides highlights, action items, and analytics. It integrates with Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams, and offers a free tier. MeetGeek is cloud-based and uses a bot, so it lacks the on-device privacy of Oats, but it's a solid alternative for teams needing collaboration features.
Krisp
Krisp is an AI-powered noise cancellation and meeting assistant that transcribes and summarizes calls. It works with any conferencing app and offers a free plan. Krisp processes audio locally for noise cancellation but uses cloud for transcription. It's a good alternative for those prioritizing audio quality, but Oats offers more comprehensive note-taking features.
While Oats stands out for its free, open-source, on-device approach that prioritizes privacy and eliminates bot intrusion, the alternatives listed above offer unique strengths such as extensive integrations, team collaboration, and advanced analytics. Otter.ai and Fireflies.ai are feature-rich but cloud-based; tl;dv and Fathom provide generous free plans; Avoma and MeetGeek focus on conversation intelligence; and Krisp excels in audio processing. Your choice depends on whether you value privacy and local processing (Oats) or need broader ecosystem support and collaborative tools.