Ava: AI live captioning and transcription app for accessibility, providing real-time captions for conversations and video meetings. oTranscribe: A free, open-source web app that eases manual transcription of recorded interviews by integrating media playback controls beside a text editor. Here's where each one pulls ahead on pricing, features, and the meetings it suits best.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Ava when real-time captioning for deaf and hard-of-hearing participants matters most, and oTranscribe when academic and qualitative researchers transcribing fieldwork or oral-history recordings matters most. Run both through a week of actual calls to see which suits your workflow.
AI live captioning and transcription app for accessibility, providing real-time captions for conversations and video meetings.
A free, open-source web app that eases manual transcription of recorded interviews by integrating media playback controls beside a text editor.
Ava is a live captioning and transcription service built primarily for deaf and hard-of-hearing users, as well as for organizations that need accessible meetings and conversations. The app captures audio from in-person conversations and from video conferencing tools, then generates real-time captions on a phone, computer, or in the meeting interface. Ava combines automatic speech recognition with an optional professional scribe service for higher-accuracy, ADA-compliant captioning, giving users a choice between fast AI captions and human-assisted transcription. Features include color-coded speaker identification so users can follow who said what, support for many languages, and stored transcripts and summaries after a conversation ends. Through its Ava Connect integration, the service connects with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, and it is available across mobile (iOS and Android), web, and desktop (Windows and Mac). Ava is aimed at individuals who need accessibility support in daily conversations and meetings, as well as at educational institutions, healthcare providers, corporations, and event venues that must provide compliant real-time captioning without committing to a traditional CART contract. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
oTranscribe is a free, open-source (MIT license) web app, created by Elliot Bentley and maintained by the MuckRock Foundation, that takes the pain out of transcribing recorded interviews. It runs in the browser on desktop computers and places an integrated audio or video player alongside a text editor, so you can pause, rewind, and fast-forward your recording using keyboard shortcuts without taking your hands off the keys or switching between apps. It is built for journalists, researchers, oral historians, and students who type up interviews and recordings themselves. Rather than using automatic speech recognition, oTranscribe assists manual transcription: you listen and type, inserting interactive timestamps (Ctrl+J) that you can click to jump back to that moment in the media. Your transcript autosaves to the browser's local storage, and audio files never leave your computer, keeping work private. Finished transcripts can be exported to Markdown, plain text, or oTranscribe's own .otr format, or sent to Google Drive. Rich-text formatting and adjustable playback speed are supported.
Best suited for
Ava is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); oTranscribe is open source (open source). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Ava | oTranscribe |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Integration with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams | Integrated audio/video player next to the transcript editor |
| Standout feature | Real-time live captions for in-person and online conversations | Keyboard shortcuts to pause, rewind, fast-forward, and adjust playback speed without leaving the keyboard |
| Team usage | Color-coded speaker identification | Clickable interactive timestamps that jump to the matching point in the media |
| Integrations | Optional professional scribe service for higher accuracy | Automatic saving to browser local storage with transcript history backups |
| Languages & capture | Mobile, web, and desktop apps | Export to Markdown, plain text, .otr format, or send to Google Drive |
| Best-fit workflow | Saved transcripts and conversation summaries | Local, private processing - audio and transcript never leave the user's computer |
Ava
Choose Ava if you need real-time captioning for deaf and hard-of-hearing participants — strengths include strong accessibility focus for deaf and hard-of-hearing users.
oTranscribe
Choose oTranscribe if you need journalists typing up recorded interviews for articles — strengths include completely free and open source under the mit license.
Ava
oTranscribe
It depends on your workflow. Ava is strong for real-time captioning for deaf and hard-of-hearing participants, while oTranscribe is strong for journalists typing up recorded interviews for articles. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Ava is a free tier with paid upgrades and oTranscribe is open source. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
You can — some teams pair them when each covers a different part of the meeting workflow.
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