Donna vs Otter.ai
Donna or Otter? Pick Otter if you want live captions and real-time transcription during the call. Pick Donna if the meeting record must stay on your own infrastructure and you want analysis beyond summaries — verbatim receipts, tensions, position shifts, and the room read, all from a bot on your own server.
Otter is where most people first meet AI transcription, and its live-caption experience is still excellent. The question Otter can’t answer is the one privacy-minded teams ask first: why does a record of every internal conversation need to live on someone else’s cloud, metered by the minute?
Side by side, structurally
| Axis | Otter.ai | Donna |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | Otter’s cloud (SaaS) | Your own server (privately hosted) |
| Where your recordings live | Stored and processed on Otter’s servers | Your server’s disk and your own database — nothing on a vendor cloud |
| How it attends meetings | OtterPilot bot joins your 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 | Yes — screen video + audio, compressed server-side after the call |
| Transcription engine | Proprietary, vendor-managed | Flocci Speech Recognition, with your key |
| Who owns the AI keys | Otter | You — your Flocci Speech Recognition and Flocci Intelligence keys |
| What you get after the call | Live transcript, automated summary, action items | Meeting intelligence through one of six lenses: decisions with tradeoffs, exact-quote receipts, tensions, what nobody said, position shifts, the room read, and orders |
| Pricing model | Free tier with monthly minute caps; per-seat subscriptions above it | No per-seat fee — credit-metered usage on the hosted service, or only your own infrastructure and API usage when deployed privately |
Where Otter genuinely wins
- Real-time captions during the call — Donna analyzes after the meeting ends, not live.
- Polished mobile apps and years of consumer brand recognition.
- Zero setup: sign up and it works. Donna asks you to own a server.
Where Donna wins
- Every minute of your meetings routes through Otter’s cloud and counts against plan caps. Donna records on hardware you control, with no minute caps beyond your own disk.
- Otter’s output is a transcript with a summary. Donna’s report tells you who committed to what in their exact words, where the tension was, and what nobody said.
- Otter holds the AI pipeline. With Donna the transcription and analysis run on your own Flocci Speech Recognition and Flocci Intelligence keys — swap, audit, or cap them yourself.
The data question, since nobody else leads with it
Otter: Stored and processed on Otter’s servers. Donna: your server’s disk and your own database — nothing on a vendor cloud. For boards, client work, hiring, negotiations, and one-on-ones, that line is usually the whole decision.
What each one charges
| Otter | Donna | |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | 300 transcription minutes per month | One-time credit grant plus a monthly free allowance |
| Paid | Pro $16.99/user/month monthly or $8.33 annual; Business $30 monthly or $19.99 annual; Enterprise custom | Credit-metered usage — meetings attended, minutes transcribed, reports delivered. No seat licence. |
Otter’s figures were read from their own pricing page on 29 July 2026; check it before you buy, because plans change without notice. Donna’s current credit costs live on your billing page at account.flocci.in.
Questions, answered straight
Is Donna a privately hosted alternative to Otter.ai?
Yes. Donna does the same core job — an AI attendee that records and transcribes your Google Meet calls — but runs entirely on your own server. Recordings, transcripts, and reports never touch a vendor cloud, and there are no per-seat fees or minute caps.
Does Donna transcribe in real time like Otter?
Partly. While Donna is in the room, her dashboard shows a live, speaker-attributed caption feed; the definitive Flocci Speech Recognition transcript and the full intelligence report land right after the call. Otter’s polished in-call caption experience is still its home turf — Donna’s edge is what you hold afterward.
Which is cheaper for a team, Otter or Donna?
Otter charges per seat per month; costs scale with headcount. Donna has no seat pricing — one server attends for the whole team, and you pay only your own server and metered Flocci Speech Recognition and Flocci Intelligence usage, which for typical meeting volumes is a fraction of multi-seat subscriptions.
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.