Attendee: Open-source, self-hostable meeting bot API that sends bots into Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams to capture recordings and transcripts. Shadow: A bot-free, Mac-based AI meeting assistant that transcribes and summarizes calls locally without joining as a participant. This comparison weighs them on pricing, features, and everyday workflow fit.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Attendee when developers embedding meeting recording and transcription into their own saas products matters most, and Shadow when privacy-conscious teams that prefer on-device transcription matters most. Run both through a week of actual calls to see which suits your workflow.
Open-source, self-hostable meeting bot API that sends bots into Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams to capture recordings and transcripts.
A bot-free, Mac-based AI meeting assistant that transcribes and summarizes calls locally without joining as a participant.
Attendee is an open-source REST API, developed by Attendee Labs, that abstracts the engineering work of building meeting bots into a single developer-friendly interface. Instead of maintaining separate bot stacks for each video platform, developers send one API request and Attendee dispatches a bot that joins a Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams call, then returns recordings, transcripts, and real-time media streams. It is built on widely used, battle-tested technologies such as Django, PostgreSQL, and Redis, and is designed to run from a single Docker image so teams can self-host it on their own infrastructure for data residency, compliance, and cost control. The project documents real-time transcription, webhooks, calendar integration, scheduled meetings, and websocket audio input/output. Because it is open source and self-hosted, organizations in regulated industries can keep meeting audio and transcripts inside their own environment rather than routing them through a third-party vendor. The repository is actively maintained with frequent releases, and the project markets itself as a lower-cost alternative to closed-source meeting-bot platforms for developers who want to embed meeting capture and transcription into their own applications. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Shadow is a bot-free AI meeting assistant for macOS that captures meetings by listening to your computer's audio in the background rather than joining the call as a visible participant. Because transcription runs locally on the Mac, the audio does not need to leave the device for that core processing step, which the company positions as a privacy advantage. Shadow can automatically detect when a meeting starts, transcribe the conversation with speaker identification, and turn the discussion into structured notes, summaries, and follow-up items. It also captures on-screen content alongside the spoken audio, so material shared during a call (slides, dashboards, or shared windows) can be reflected in the output. The tool works across common conferencing platforms including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Webex, Slack, and Discord. Users can configure customizable prompts (described as Skills) to generate notes, summaries, or drafted emails, and connect outputs to other tools via webhooks. It is aimed at professionals and teams who want meeting capture without adding another bot to the call. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Attendee is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Shadow is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Attendee | Shadow |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Unified REST API for deploying bots to Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams | Bot-free capture that records system audio without joining the meeting as a participant |
| Standout feature | Meeting recording and transcript retrieval through API endpoints | On-device (local) transcription on macOS |
| Team usage | Real-time media pipeline with websocket audio input/output | Speaker identification during transcription |
| Integrations | Webhooks for event-driven workflows | Captures on-screen content in addition to spoken audio |
| Languages & capture | Calendar integration and scheduled-meeting support | Customizable prompts/Skills to generate notes, summaries, and emails |
| Best-fit workflow | Single Docker image self-hosting built on Django, PostgreSQL, and Redis | Webhook integration to connect outputs to other tools |
Attendee
Choose Attendee if you need developers embedding meeting recording and transcription into their own saas products — strengths include fully open source and designed for convenient self-hosting, keeping meeting data on your own infrastructure.
Shadow
Choose Shadow if you need capturing notes and summaries across multiple conferencing platforms without a bot joining — strengths include does not add a visible bot to meetings.
Attendee
Shadow
It depends on your workflow. Attendee is strong for developers embedding meeting recording and transcription into their own saas products, while Shadow is strong for capturing notes and summaries across multiple conferencing platforms without a bot joining. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Attendee is a free tier with paid upgrades and Shadow is a free tier with paid upgrades. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
Yes. Many teams run more than one meeting assistant when the workflows are complementary.
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