The short answer
Otter.ai records and transcribes meetings, writes summaries with action items, tags speakers by name and keeps everything in a workspace your team can search and share. It runs on the web, on Windows and Mac, and on iPhone and Android. Otter's help center says it transcribes English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese (Simplified).
Fraze is an alternative for one reason. Speech recognition and translation both run on your own computer, so no audio and no transcript text is uploaded, nothing joins the call, and there is no monthly minute limit.
Fraze writes no summaries, tags no speakers, transcribes no files and has no mobile app. If you need any of those, Otter is the better tool.
What Otter gives you
- Otter Notetaker joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet from your connected calendar and appears in the meeting as a participant.
- A desktop app for Mac and Windows. Otter's site says you can record with no bot in the meeting, on macOS 12.3 or later and Windows 10 or later.
- Automated summaries with action items and outlines, speaker identification by name, custom vocabulary, and search across a shared workspace.
- iPhone and Android apps, a Chrome extension, import of recorded audio and video files, and export to pdf, docx and srt on paid plans.
- Transcription in six languages. To read a conversation in another language, the help center points you to Otter Chat.
From Otter's own pricing page and help center.
Otter's plans at the time of checking
Basic is free: 300 transcription minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation, three file imports for the life of the account, and the 25 most recent conversations kept. Pro is listed at $16.99 per user a month, or $8.33 per user a month on the annual plan, with 1,200 minutes a month and 90 minutes per conversation. Business is listed at $30 per user a month, or $19.99 per user a month on the annual plan, with unlimited meeting minutes and four hours per conversation. Enterprise is quote only. When we looked, the pricing page also showed 20% off the monthly Business price for three months, for first-time subscribers.
Prices and limits change often, so check the pricing page before you decide.
What Fraze does instead
| Where the words go | Minutes | In the meeting | Summaries | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Otter Basic | Otter's cloud | 300 a month | Bot or desktop app | Yes |
| Otter Pro | Otter's cloud | 1,200 a month | Bot or desktop app | Yes |
| Otter Business | Otter's cloud | Unlimited meetings | Bot or desktop app | Yes |
| Fraze | Stay on your computer | No limit once paid | Nothing joins | No |
Fraze listens to whatever your computer is playing, to a single app on macOS, or to your microphone, and writes the words on screen as they are spoken, with a translation under each line if you want one. Both steps happen on the machine, so after the first download of the language files it works with Wi-Fi off. Nothing appears in the participant list.
When Otter is the better pick
- You want the summary, the action items and the outline more than the raw words.
- You need to know who said what. Fraze has no speaker labels.
- You have a recording or a file to transcribe. Fraze is live only.
- Your team searches old meetings and shares them by link. Fraze saves transcripts on your own computer and stops there.
- You work from a phone, or you want something to sit in a meeting you cannot attend.
If you want summaries and sharing but in more languages and in a browser, Verli is the cloud sibling of Fraze from the same company. The trade is plain: the audio goes to a server.
Using Fraze in place of Otter
Pick what it listens to
System audio for a call in any app or browser, a single app on macOS, or the microphone for the room you are in.
Pick the languages
Choose the language being spoken and, if you want one, the language to read. The first use of a language downloads its files.
Start and read
Lines appear about half a second to a second after a speaker pauses. A small caption window can float over the call, and the transcript is saved on your computer.
In some places you have to tell people before you transcribe a conversation. That applies whatever tool you use, and it does not go away because the words stay on your laptop.
What Fraze costs
The first 30 minutes are free on every account, with no card. After that it is $29.99 once or $2.99 a month. Both are unlimited, because the work happens on your machine and there is no per-minute meter. A free Fraze account is required and carries the plan, but it never sees audio or transcripts.
Questions
Is there a private alternative to Otter.ai?
Yes. The test is simple: does the audio leave your machine. Fraze does the recognition and the translation on your computer, so neither the audio nor the text is uploaded. Otter is a cloud service. Its privacy policy, effective June 16, 2026, lists among its uses of meeting and uploaded information improving and monitoring the services, including training its own AI on de-identified audio recordings and on transcriptions. Otter's privacy and security page adds that the de-identification is automatic and that recordings and transcripts are not manually reviewed by a human.
Is there an Otter.ai alternative with no meeting bot?
Yes, and Otter itself has an option here: its site says the Mac and Windows desktop app can record with no bot in the meeting. Fraze never joins at all. It reads the audio your computer is already playing, so nothing shows in the participant list.
Does Fraze do AI summaries and action items like Otter?
No. Fraze writes down what is said and, if you want, translates it. There are no summaries, no action items, no speaker names, no sharing links and no calendar integration. Those are the reasons to stay on Otter.
Which Otter.ai competitors work offline?
Fraze does, once the language files are downloaded. You can turn Wi-Fi off and it keeps captioning. Otter's help center says its app can record audio on your device while you are offline, and that the recording is uploaded when you are back on a connection, so the transcript comes later.
Does Otter translate meetings live?
Otter's help center lists six transcription languages and suggests Otter Chat to translate a conversation into other languages. We found no live translated captions in its documentation at the time of checking, and Otter's own comparison with Zoom lists live captions for Otter and translated captions only for Zoom. Fraze puts a translation under each line as it is spoken, about 50 languages to or from English, with other pairs going through English.
Is there a free Otter.ai alternative?
Otter Basic is free and stays free, with 300 transcription minutes a month and 30 minutes per conversation. Fraze gives every account 30 free minutes with no card, then costs $29.99 once or $2.99 a month with no minute limit.