Ava: AI live captioning and transcription app for accessibility, providing real-time captions for conversations and video meetings. ownscribe: Local-first command-line tool that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings on macOS entirely on-device, with natural-language search across notes. We compare them on cost, capture approach, and day-to-day fit so you can choose faster.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Ava when real-time captioning for deaf and hard-of-hearing participants matters most, and ownscribe when keeping fully on-device transcripts and summaries for privacy-sensitive discussions matters most. Try them side by side on real calls before deciding — needs vary by team.
AI live captioning and transcription app for accessibility, providing real-time captions for conversations and video meetings.
Local-first command-line tool that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings on macOS entirely on-device, with natural-language search across notes.
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
ownscribe is a local-first meeting transcription and summarization command-line tool that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings entirely on the user's own machine without sending data to external servers. It is MIT-licensed and actively maintained, with v0.12.0 released in June 2026, and is written primarily in Python with a Swift component for system audio capture. On macOS 14.2 and later it captures system audio through Core Audio, and it transcribes with WhisperX to produce word-level timestamps, with optional speaker diarization via PyAnnote. For summaries it ships with a built-in local model (Phi-4-mini) and can also connect to Ollama or OpenAI-compatible backends, offering multiple templates tailored to meetings, lectures, and brief summaries. A standout feature is its natural-language search: the ask command lets users query across their stored meeting notes to retrieve relevant information. Quality-of-life features include silence-based auto-stop so recordings end cleanly when a meeting goes quiet. Because it is a CLI distributed through GitHub and runs entirely on local hardware, ownscribe targets developers and privacy-focused users who prefer scriptable, terminal-driven workflows over a graphical meeting notetaker while keeping all audio and transcripts on-device. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Ava is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); ownscribe is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Ava | ownscribe |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Integration with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams | Local-first recording, transcription, and summarization via CLI |
| Standout feature | Real-time live captions for in-person and online conversations | System audio capture on macOS 14.2+ through Core Audio |
| Team usage | Color-coded speaker identification | WhisperX transcription with word-level timestamps |
| Integrations | Optional professional scribe service for higher accuracy | Optional speaker diarization via PyAnnote |
| Languages & capture | Mobile, web, and desktop apps | Local summarization with a built-in Phi-4-mini model, plus Ollama and OpenAI-compatible backends |
| Best-fit workflow | Saved transcripts and conversation summaries | Natural-language search across meeting notes with the ask command |
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.
ownscribe
Choose ownscribe if you need developers capturing and summarizing meetings from the terminal on a mac — strengths include runs entirely on-device with no data sent to external servers.
Ava
ownscribe
It depends on your workflow. Ava is strong for real-time captioning for deaf and hard-of-hearing participants, while ownscribe is strong for developers capturing and summarizing meetings from the terminal on a mac. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Ava is a free tier with paid upgrades and ownscribe 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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