Best AI Note Taker 2026: 7 Compared + 1 Free on GitHub (Real Test)

Author: Hyperautomation Labs · Watch on YouTube

Video authored by the channel shown, not by IANIA; all rights belong to the creator. Transcript and summary generated automatically; the original-language content is preserved.

Original language: English

Original video: Best AI Note Taker 2026: 7 Compared + 1 Free on GitHub (Real Test) · Channel: Hyperautomation Labs · 06:18 · Watch on YouTube

Topics: Task and workflow automation, AI developer tools, Local and open-source models, Open source and software ecosystems, Privacy and data protection

Summary

The video compares seven AI meeting note takers by checking their bot behavior, free-plan limits, privacy practices, and paid pricing. It then tests the free, open-source Meily app, which processes audio and generates summaries locally on a laptop. In a sample meeting, Meily captures a changed launch date, a corrected budget, and action items, though its free version does not label speakers. The presenter closes with recommendations by use case and a reminder to tell participants when taking notes because recording without consent may be illegal in some places.

Key points

The comparison focuses on whether a bot joins calls, free-plan limits, meeting-data training, and the cost of paid plans.
Fathom offers unlimited recordings and instant summaries for free, but its bot joins calls by default.
Granola does not use a meeting bot, but its free plan keeps history for only 30 days and speaker labels may be unreliable.
Otter offers live transcription, but its free plan is limited to 300 minutes per month and 30 minutes per call; its privacy page says it trains on deidentified recordings unless users are on enterprise.
Fireflies, tl;dv, Crisp, and Notion each have different trade-offs involving bots, free access, languages, or plan requirements.
Meily is presented as a free, open-source app that processes audio and summaries on the user’s laptop without uploading data or requiring an account.
Meily’s setup involves installing the app, downloading two AI models, and granting microphone and system-audio permissions.
In the test meeting, Meily captured the corrected budget and action deadlines, but the free version did not label speakers.
The presenter recommends choosing a tool based on needs such as avoiding bots, CRM integration, privacy, or working in a noisy environment.
The video advises telling participants when taking notes and warns that recording without consent is illegal in some places.

Chapters

Start	Chapter	Summary
00:00	What to look for in an AI note taker	The presenter introduces privacy concerns and the four questions used to compare meeting note takers.
01:02	Comparing the major tools	Fathom, Granola, Otter, Fireflies, tl;dv, Crisp, and Notion are compared by features, limitations, and pricing.
03:10	Meily: a free local alternative	The video introduces Meily and explains its local processing, installation, model downloads, and permissions.
04:12	Testing Meily on a sample meeting	A test meeting checks whether Meily captures a changed date, corrected budget, action items, and irrelevant conversation.
05:15	Trade-offs, recommendations, and recording consent	The presenter explains Meily’s speaker-label limitation, recommends tools for different needs, and gives a consent reminder.

Quotes

Four questions decide which one you should use. — 00:30

No bot ever. — 01:34

Nothing is uploaded. There’s no account and there’s no monthly limit. — 03:41

The free version doesn’t label who said what. — 05:15

in some places recording without consent is illegal. — 06:18

Concepts and entities

AI note taker, Fathom, Granola, Otter, Fireflies, tl;dv, Crisp, Notion, Meetily, Product Hunt, GitHub, HubSpot, Salesforce

Full transcript (original language)

00:00 You join a call and before anyone says hello, there’s a stranger in the meeting. Noteaker. Everyone sees it and someone asks who invited the bot. Then after the call, your conversation sits on a server you’ve never seen. And some of these apps train their AI on it by default. You just wanted notes. So I took the top rated AI note takers on Product Hunt and checked every pricing page today. Then I installed a free one from GitHub that runs entirely on your laptop and gave it a real meeting. By

00:30 the end, you’ll know which one fits you and how to set it up in 5 minutes. Here’s what a good noteaker gives you. You stop typing during calls. Afterwards, you get a summary, the decisions, and who owes what by when. And weeks later, you can ask, “What did we agree on the budget?” and get the answer. But they’re not equal. Four questions decide which one you should use. Does a bot join your call? What do you actually get for free? Does it train on your meetings? And what does it cost when you outgrow free? Fathom has the

01:02 highest rating in the whole category. Five out of five from over 300 reviews. And its free plan is the most generous of the big names. Unlimited recordings and instant summaries. The catch is the bot. By default, Fathom joins your call as a participant. Bot free recording is still a beta and only on the Mac. One reviewer said that makes it unusable for half their internal calls. It’s built for sales teams. Nodes go straight into HubSpot or Salesforce. Paid starts at

01:34 $16 a month build yearly. Granola is the one people fall in love with. No bot ever. It listens through your laptop. You type a few rough notes and it turns them into clean ones. It runs on Mac, Windows, and your phone. So, it even works for meetings in person. Two things to know. The free plan only keeps 30 days of history. And one reviewer called it speaker labels on a fourperson call a coin flip. It also deletes the audio after transcribing, so you can’t go back

02:06 and check. Paid is $14 a user. Otter’s party trick is the live transcript. You watch the words appear while people talk. Free gives you 300 minutes a month, but each call stops at 30 minutes. It joins as a bot, and its privacy page says it trains on deidentified recordings unless you’re on enterprise. One reviewer said it even followed them into meetings they skipped. If you use it, check the auto join setting on day one. Pro is 833 a

02:37 month. Build yearly. Four more fast. First, Fireflies. It handles over a 100 languages and it says it never trains on your data, but it joins as a bot unless you record with their Chrome extension. Pro is $10. Build yearly. TLDV free gives you 10 meetings with AI notes. Great for video recaps. Also a bot by default. Crisp, no bot, and it’s famous for removing background noise. But there’s no free plan anymore. Just a 7-day trial. and notion no bot and the

03:10 notes land right in your workspace but only on the $20 business plan. Put it side by side and you see the pattern. The free plans are either capped or they put a bot in your call. And the cleanest experiences cost $14 to $20 a month per person. Quick one. If this saved you a weekend of free trials, hit subscribe because next is the one that costs nothing. It’s called Meily and it has over 31,000 stars on GitHub. It’s open source and free. It works like granola

03:41 with no bot in the call, but everything happens on your own laptop. Your audio is turned into text on your machine. The summary is written on your machine. Nothing is uploaded. There’s no account and there’s no monthly limit. Installing it takes about 5 minutes. On a Mac, paste one line into terminal or download the installer from the releases page. There’s a Windows installer too. Open it and it downloads two AI models one time. A small one that turns speech into text

04:12 about 700 megabytes and one that writes the summary about 2 GB. Then allow two permissions, the microphone for your voice and system audio so it can hear everyone else on the call. Now the real test. I made a two-minute planning meeting with three people. It has a launch date that changes halfway through, a budget that gets corrected, two action items with deadlines, and a pointless chat about the coffee machine. Here’s the answer key. Hit record and play the meeting. The transcript appears

04:44 as people talk. It heard the date change and the corrected budget, 48,500. Then stop and generate the summary. This runs on the laptop and it took about half a minute. And here’s what it wrote. Launch on Friday, November 14th. Budget 48,500 approved up from 45 because of the Android build. The fallback web first and an action table. Dev sends the revised quote by Wednesday, the beta

05:15 email by Monday, and the coffee machine skipped. every item on the answer key with nothing leaving the laptop. Two trade-offs, so you go in knowing them. The free version doesn’t label who said what. It got dev and prior, right? Because people said their names out loud. Speaker labels are planned for their paid pro version. And the AI runs on your own computer, so it’s happiest on a recent one. I ran this on an Apple Silicon Mac. If you want speaker labels for free, look at an log, the one on

05:47 screen. It’s another open- source app built to feel like granola. So, which one should you use if you hate bots in your calls granola or metery for free? If you’re in sales and live in a CRM, Fathom. If you want the most from a big name for $0, Fathom’s free plan. If your calls are private like clients, patients or anything legal meatly because nothing leaves your laptop already living in notion notion noisy coffee shop crisp and whichever you pick tell people

06:18 you’re taking notes in some places recording without consent is illegal. I put the whole comparison the pick by problem chart and the 5minute meterly setup into one free guide comment notes and my bot sends it to you. If this was useful, hit join to become a member here on YouTube or subscribe on Facebook. New to Cloud Code? My beginner guides are in the description. See you in the next