Choose with receipts, not marketing
Which AI notetaker should you buy? Name the constraint you cannot compromise on first. Live captions during the call: Otter. Most generous free tier: Fathom. Nothing joins the call: Granola or Jamie. Meeting workflow and agendas: Fellow. Metrics across a calendar: Read AI. A record that stays on infrastructure you control, read through the lens the session deserves: Donna.
Every comparison below credits what the competitor genuinely does better — then shows where Donna’s architecture wins. If a cloud tool fits you better, these pages will tell you so.
Donna vs Otter.ai
The best-known name in AI meeting notes, strongest at real-time transcription.
Donna vs Fireflies.ai
The integration powerhouse — its bot feeds transcripts into CRMs and 60+ tools.
Donna vs Fathom
The free-tier favorite — unlimited recording for individuals with instant summaries.
Donna vs tl;dv
The EU-hosted, GDPR-forward cloud notetaker with broad language support.
Donna vs MeetGeek
The workflow automator — templates, KPIs, and auto-shared recaps for ops-minded teams.
Donna vs Granola
The botless notepad — captures system audio on your device and enriches your own notes.
Donna vs Meetily
The open-source, privacy-first desktop notetaker — local transcription on your own machine.
Donna vs Jamie
The privacy-first bot-free notetaker — a desktop app that records your device audio, hosted in the EU.
Donna vs Fellow
The meeting-management platform — agendas and templates first, AI notes and botless recording layered on top.
Donna vs Read AI
The metrics school of meeting AI — scores for engagement, sentiment and speaking behaviour alongside summaries.
The one-table version
| Axis | Otter | Fireflies | Fathom | tl;dv | MeetGeek | Granola | Meetily | Jamie | Fellow | Read AI | Donna |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | Otter’s cloud (SaaS) | Fireflies’ cloud (SaaS) | Fathom’s cloud (SaaS) | tl;dv’s cloud (EU-hosted SaaS) | MeetGeek’s cloud (SaaS) | Desktop app; AI processing in Granola’s cloud | Privately hosted desktop app (macOS/Windows) | Jamie’s cloud (SaaS), with an on-device recorder | Fellow’s cloud (SaaS) | Read AI’s cloud (SaaS) | Your own server (privately hosted) |
| Where your recordings live | Stored and processed on Otter’s servers | Stored and processed on Fireflies’ servers | Stored and processed on Fathom’s servers | Stored and processed on tl;dv’s EU servers | Stored and processed on MeetGeek’s servers | Audio captured on-device; transcripts processed by cloud AI | On your device — fully local processing available | Processed and stored on Jamie’s EU infrastructure | Stored and processed on Fellow’s servers | Stored and processed on Read AI’s servers | Your server’s disk and your own database — nothing on a vendor cloud |
| How it attends meetings | OtterPilot bot joins your calls | The “Fred” bot joins your calls | Bot joins Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams calls | Bot joins your calls | Bot auto-joins calendar meetings | Botless — nothing joins the call; it listens to system audio | No bot — listens locally from your machine during calls | No bot — the desktop app captures your machine’s audio | Both — a notetaker bot and a botless recording mode | Bot joins Zoom, Google Meet and Teams calls | Joins Google Meet as a visible participant — on demand, or auto-joined from your calendar’s iCal feed |
| Meeting video capture | Captures shared slides/screens | Video capture on higher tiers | Yes — call recording with highlight clips | Yes — recordings with clips and timestamps | Yes | No | No | No — audio only, no shared-screen capture | Recording with AI notes on paid plans | Yes, with recordings and highlights on paid tiers | Yes — screen video + audio, compressed server-side after the call |
| Transcription engine | Proprietary, vendor-managed | Vendor-managed, multilingual | Vendor-managed | Vendor-managed, 30+ languages | Vendor-managed | Vendor-managed | Local speech-to-text on your machine; summaries via a local model or your own API key | Vendor-managed, multilingual | Vendor-managed, very broad language support | Vendor-managed | Flocci Speech Recognition, with your key |
Published pricing, side by side
Read from each vendor’s own pricing page on 29 July 2026. Plans change without notice — treat this as a structural snapshot and their page as the truth.
| Tool | Free tier | Paid plans (published) |
|---|---|---|
| Otter | 300 transcription minutes per month | Pro $16.99/user/month monthly or $8.33 annual; Business $30 monthly or $19.99 annual; Enterprise custom |
| Fireflies | Free forever plan; 400 storage minutes per team | Pro $18/seat monthly or $10 annual; Business $29 monthly or $19 annual; Enterprise $39 annual |
| Fathom | Unlimited recordings and transcriptions on the free plan | Premium $20/month or $16 annual; Team $19 or $15 annual; Business $34 or $25 annual |
| tl;dv | Free forever plan with unlimited recordings | Paid tiers published on their pricing page |
| MeetGeek | 3 hours of transcription per month, 2-hour meeting cap | Pro $9.99/user/month; Business $17; Enterprise custom (adds on-premise storage) |
| Granola | Unlimited notes with a 30-day history limit | Paid plan unlocks older notes |
| Meetily | Open source, MIT licensed — free to run yourself | None; you pay only your own hardware and models |
| Jamie | Free tier available | Per-seat subscription; see their pricing page |
| Fellow | 5 AI notes and 5 AI recordings per user, lifetime | Team $7/user/month annual or $11 monthly; Business $15 or $23; Enterprise $25 annual |
| Read AI | 5 meeting transcripts per month, 1-hour cap | Pro $15/user/month annual or $19.75 monthly; Enterprise $22.50 or $29.75; Enterprise+ $29.75 or $39.75 |
| Donna | One-time credit grant plus a monthly free allowance | Credit-metered usage, no seats — or your own infrastructure when deployed privately |
What changed in this market in 2026
Google Meet started screening notetaker bots
Google Meet now flags third-party bots as a potential risk in the admission flow, so a host has to admit them deliberately, and Workspace admins gained sharper controls over which third-party apps may reach Meet and Calendar. Every bot in this market is affected, Donna included — the difference is that a bot you run yourself has an owner inside your own organisation rather than a shared vendor fleet.
The bot-free wave
Partly in response, several vendors shipped device-capture modes: Fathom added a bot-free option, Fellow ships botless recording, and Granola and Jamie were bot-free from the start. It removes admission friction and gives up meetings you do not personally attend, plus shared-screen capture.
Fathom moved to fathom.ai
Fathom’s pricing and product pages now serve from fathom.ai, with fathom.video redirecting. A small thing, but comparison pages that still send you to the old domain are a good indicator of how recently they were checked.
Put Donna in your next meeting
Access is open — sign in with your Google account and she’s in your dashboard in minutes. Rolling out to a whole team, or want a hand with the server setup? We’re glad to help.