When should I choose Glimpse over Otter?

Choose Glimpse if: Nothing joins the call. Glimpse records your mic and your computer's audio, or only the apps you pick. Transcription and speaker labels run on your computer, so they work offline and your audio isn't uploaded. No minute limits or per-meeting caps. Recording is part of a one-time license. You want the transcript itself, searchable and exportable to text, Markdown, SRT or VTT. Free, unlimited dictation in the same app, and the code is open source.

When should I choose Otter over Glimpse?

Choose Otter if: You want AI summaries, action items and chat over your meetings, ready the moment the call ends. You want a notetaker that joins calendar meetings for you, even ones you don't attend. You want to share notes with your team in a web app, or record on your phone. You're fine with your meetings being transcribed and stored in the cloud.

Glimpse vs Otter

Otter is a cloud notetaker that joins your calls, writes summaries and keeps everything in your Otter account. Glimpse records meetings on your own computer with no bot, transcribes them offline and labels every speaker locally. You get a transcript, not AI notes.

Last updated October 5, 2026

The short answer

Pick Otter if

You want AI summaries, action items and chat over your meetings, ready the moment the call ends.
You want a notetaker that joins calendar meetings for you, even ones you don't attend.
You want to share notes with your team in a web app, or record on your phone.
You're fine with your meetings being transcribed and stored in the cloud.

Pick Glimpse if

Nothing joins the call. Glimpse records your mic and your computer's audio, or only the apps you pick.
Transcription and speaker labels run on your computer, so they work offline and your audio isn't uploaded.
No minute limits or per-meeting caps. Recording is part of a one-time license.
You want the transcript itself, searchable and exportable to text, Markdown, SRT or VTT.
Free, unlimited dictation in the same app, and the code is open source.

Side by side

Feature	Glimpse	Otter
Price	Free dictationRecording from $25 one-time	Free + paid plansPro $8.33/mo billed yearly, or $16.99 monthly
Free tier	Unlimited dictationtwo-week free trial of recording	300 min a monthup to 30 min per conversation
Where meetings are transcribed	On your computercloud only if you add your own key	In the cloudstored on AWS
Works offline	Yesrecording, transcription and speakers	No
Bot in the call	Neverrecords your computer's audio	Optionalnotetaker joins calendar meetings, desktop app records without one
Speaker labels	Yes, on-deviceNVIDIA Nemotron 3 Diarization, up to 8	Yesin the cloud
Live transcript	Yeslabeled by speaker, with bookmarks	Yes
AI summaries and chat	Noexport Markdown to the AI tool you like	Yes
Keeps the audio	Yes, on your computeryour mic and the call on separate tracks	Yesin your Otter account
Dictation in any app	Yes, freeevery model, no limits	No
Open source	Yes, AGPL-3.0audit it on GitHub	No
Runs on	Mac, Windows	Web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android

In detail

No bot, no upload

Otter is built around the cloud. Its notetaker can join your calendar meetings to record them, and its desktop app can record without a bot. Either way, the conversation is transcribed and stored in your Otter account. Glimpse never joins a call. It records your microphone and your computer's audio, or only the apps you pick, like Zoom, Teams or the browser tab with Google Meet, and transcribes it on your computer with the same local models you dictate with. Turn the wifi off and it still works.

Who said what, on your computer

Your microphone and the call are kept on separate tracks, so your lines are always yours. NVIDIA Nemotron 3 Diarization then tells up to 8 voices apart, on your Mac or PC. A live transcript window labels each line as it comes in, and you can rename speakers, drop bookmarks with notes, and pause or stop from it. When you stop, Glimpse runs speaker detection again over the whole recording for the most accurate labels.

A transcript, not meeting notes

This is the real trade-off. Otter writes summaries and action items and lets you chat with your meetings. Glimpse doesn't write summaries. It gives you a full, speaker-labeled transcript you can play back, search, and export as text, Markdown, SRT or VTT. If you want a summary, hand the Markdown to whichever AI tool you trust. If AI notes are what you're after, Otter is the better fit.

Minutes vs. a one-time license

Otter's free plan includes 300 minutes a month, up to 30 minutes per conversation. Pro is $8.33 a month billed yearly, or $16.99 month to month, for 1,200 minutes. Glimpse has no minute counts. Dictation is free and unlimited, and recording meetings comes with every license: $25 once for 1 device or $39 for up to 3, with a two-week free trial.

Sources checked

Comparison copy was checked against these public sources on October 5, 2026.