Fathom vs Otter.ai (2026): Which AI App Is Better?

Both are popular ai meeting notes & transcription. Here is how Fathom and Otter.ai stack up on price, strengths and weaknesses, and which one we would pick.

Fathom

Free meeting notes that many teams never outgrow

8.6 /10

Pricing: Free plan, paid from $19/mo

Pros

  • Best free plan in the category, usable long-term for individuals
  • Clean summaries and shareable highlight clips
  • Solid CRM integrations for sales teams on paid plans

Cons

  • Thinner call analytics than Gong-style revenue intelligence tools
  • Recording requires the desktop app rather than a pure cloud bot
Visit Fathom β†—

Otter.ai

Live transcription and meeting notes with a chat assistant

8.5 /10

Pricing: Free plan, paid from $8.33/mo

Pros

  • Accurate live transcription
  • Free plan covers light use
  • Chat across all your meetings

Cons

  • Auto-joining bots annoy some participants
  • Speaker identification needs training
Visit Otter.ai β†—

Fathom vs Otter.ai at a glance

FathomOtter.ai
Editor score8.6 / 108.5 / 10
Pricing modelFreemiumFreemium
Starting price$19/mo$8.33/mo
Reader upvotes00
Best formeeting notes, free, zoomtranscription, meeting notes, zoom

Our pick

Fathom edges it with a score of 8.6 versus 8.5. Fathom is the better fit if you value: best free plan in the category, usable long-term for individuals, clean summaries and shareable highlight clips. Choose Otter.ai instead if you need: accurate live transcription, free plan covers light use.

Other ai meeting notes & transcription to consider

Full ranking β†’

Granola Freemium

Notes that combine your own typing with the transcript, no bot required

tl;dv Freemium

Meeting recorder with multi-meeting reports and 5,000+ integrations

Notta Freemium

Multilingual meeting transcription with AI summaries and translation