Fireflies.ai
from $10/mo
AI notetaker and searchable meeting knowledge base for teams.
Visit Fireflies.aiFireflies.ai vs Otter.ai
A side-by-side of Fireflies.ai and Otter.ai on pricing and our methodology scores, drawn from each tool's category Listings. They compete in Best AI Meeting Notes.
Otter.ai
from $17/mo
Real-time transcription and AI meeting notes, built for live capture.
Visit Otter.aiThe verdict
Otter.ai is the stronger overall pick. In the Best AI Meeting Notes ranking it scores 3.45 to Fireflies.ai's 3.38 out of 5. That said, Fireflies.ai wins on individual criteria below, so read the breakdown against your own priorities.
At a glance
| Fireflies.ai | Otter.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $10/mo | $17/mo |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Best AI Meeting Notes score | 3.38 (#4) | 3.45 (#3) |
Head to head: Best AI Meeting Notes
scored / 5 Transcription Accuracy 25% weight
Fireflies.ai 3.5
Reviewers and independent testers cite roughly 90–95% accuracy on clear audio, but the most repeated complaint is that accuracy slips badly with heavy accents, background noise, and people talking over each other.
Otter.ai 3.5
Hits up to ~93–95% on clean recordings, but real-world accuracy drops toward 85% with background noise, overlapping speakers, and strong accents, and multi-person calls suffer from speaker mislabeling.
AI Summary Quality 25% weight
Fireflies.ai 3.5
Summaries with timestamps and action items get praised as productivity wins, but independent reviewers flag inconsistency — recaps can flatten nuanced conversations and action-item attribution is unreliable, sometimes naming the wrong owner or inventing tasks.
Otter.ai 3.0
The jump-from-bullet-to-transcript feature is genuinely useful, but reviewers report summaries that miss the real next steps and read as disorganized or generalized, leaving teams to review meetings manually.
Integrations 20% weight
Fireflies.ai 4.0
The clearest strength here — Fireflies shows up across every major meeting platform and pushes notes into CRMs cleanly enough to save reviewers 10–15 minutes of data entry per call, though native CRM depth is shallow and Slack Huddles and Webex coverage is incomplete.
Otter.ai 3.5
The core meeting stack — Zoom, Teams, Meet — connects seamlessly on every plan, but the wider app catalog is described as limited and CRM connectors are gated above the free tier.
Privacy and Security 15% weight
Fireflies.ai 2.5
Certifications are solid (SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, HIPAA) and data is encrypted in transit and at rest, but all audio uploads to the cloud, the privacy policy permits marketing use and third-party sharing, and a December 2025 class-action lawsuit alleges biometric data collection without consent — an allegation, not a ruling, but a real gap between certified and private for regulated teams.
Otter.ai 4.0
Independent reviewers confirm AES-256 encryption, available two-factor auth, and a general sense that transcripts stay confidential, backed by SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA on the vendor side.
Value for Money 15% weight
Fireflies.ai 3.0
Independent reviewers call the $10 Pro tier reasonably priced and competitive, but value is the single most contested theme on review sites — around 40% of negative reviews cite high cost and confusing billing, and some find paid tiers expensive next to rival transcription tools.
Otter.ai 3.5
Annual pricing around $100/year is a fair accuracy-to-price balance, but reviewers find it pricey unless heavily used, and the free tier's 300-minute cap frustrates heavier users fast.
Fireflies.ai
Pros
- CRM and cross-platform integrations are the standout — reviewers report saving 10–15 minutes of manual data entry per meeting
- Shows up regardless of meeting platform, so Zoom, Meet, and Teams calls all land in one searchable place
- AskFred lets you query past meetings in plain language across single or multiple calls
- 100+ integrations span Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, Notion, Linear, and Zapier for custom workflows
- $10 Pro tier is competitive and the free-forever plan lets a team try it without a card
Cons
- Native CRM depth is shallow — one Pipedrive user calls the integration "limited" despite the long connector list
- Action-item attribution is unreliable, sometimes assigning the wrong owner or inventing tasks from casual remarks
- All audio uploads to Fireflies' cloud, and the privacy policy permits data use for marketing and third-party sharing
- A December 2025 class-action lawsuit alleges biometric data collection without consent
- Value is the most contested theme on review sites — roughly 40% of negative reviews cite high cost and confusing billing
Otter.ai
Pros
- Otter Assistant transcribes Zoom, Teams, and Meet live, with on-screen captions as the meeting runs
- Near-95% accuracy on clean recordings in independent testing
- Click "View in transcript" jumps from any summary bullet straight to the passage it came from
- Zoom/Teams/Meet integration works on every plan, free tier included
- The 300-minute free plan and ~$100/year annual pricing make it cheap to start
Cons
- AI summaries often miss the real next steps, so teams still review meetings by hand
- Accuracy slides on background noise, overlapping speakers, and strong accents — real-world ~85%
- Speaker labels get muddled in multi-person calls, sometimes splitting one person into two
- The broader app catalog beyond the core meeting stack is thin
- Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zapier integrations are gated to Pro and up
FAQ
- Is Fireflies.ai or Otter.ai better?
- Otter.ai edges ahead in our scoring. In the Best AI Meeting Notes ranking Fireflies.ai scores 3.45 and Otter.ai scores 3.38 out of 5. Fireflies.ai still wins on specific criteria, so the right pick depends on what you weight most.
- Is Fireflies.ai cheaper than Otter.ai?
- Fireflies.ai has the lower entry price: Fireflies.ai starts at $10/mo and Otter.ai starts at $17/mo.
- What is the difference between Fireflies.ai and Otter.ai?
- Fireflies.ai is positioned as AI notetaker and searchable meeting knowledge base for teams. Otter.ai is positioned as Real-time transcription and AI meeting notes, built for live capture. They go head to head in Best AI Meeting Notes.
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