Balto: Real-time AI guidance and agent-assist platform that coaches contact-center and sales agents live during calls. OpenOats: Open-source macOS meeting note-taker that transcribes calls locally and surfaces relevant talking points from your own notes in real time. Below, they line up on price, capture method, and how each fits a real meeting stack.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Balto when guiding agents live through objections and compliance requirements matters most, and OpenOats when privately transcribing meetings on a mac without sending audio to the cloud matters most. Try them side by side on real calls before deciding — needs vary by team.
Real-time AI guidance and agent-assist platform that coaches contact-center and sales agents live during calls.
Open-source macOS meeting note-taker that transcribes calls locally and surfaces relevant talking points from your own notes in real time.
Balto is a contact-center AI platform centered on real-time guidance during live customer and sales calls. Rather than focusing on post-call review, Balto listens to conversations as they happen and surfaces dynamic prompts, objection-handling cues, compliance checklists, and knowledge-base answers to the agent in the moment. Its Agent Assist pulls relevant information so reps can respond to customer questions instantly, while real-time QA automatically scores interactions across all calls and flags compliance risk early, maintaining an audit trail for supervisors. Coaching automation tailors recommendations to each agent's performance, and real-time note generation produces call summaries without manual write-ups. Balto also offers voice AI agents to handle high-volume, repeatable calls and supports omnichannel context across voice and digital channels. It integrates with CRMs and telephony systems such as Salesforce and RingCentral. The platform is used across industries including healthcare, insurance, banking, collections, and home improvement, and is aimed at contact centers and sales teams that want in-the-moment guidance, compliance assurance, and automated quality management at scale. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
OpenOats is an open-source macOS meeting note-taker, created by Yazin Akkawi (the project was previously named OpenGranola before being renamed), that sits alongside your calls and both transcribes the conversation and helps you contribute to it. It captures both sides of a meeting and transcribes audio locally on Apple Silicon so audio never leaves the device, while in real time it searches your own markdown or plain-text knowledge base to surface relevant talking points and things worth saying during the discussion. The application window is hidden from screen sharing by default, which lets it stay private during video calls, and transcripts and session logs are auto-saved locally. OpenOats supports both fully local operation through Ollama and cloud providers such as OpenRouter and Voyage AI, so users can choose between complete offline privacy and hosted models. It is written primarily in Swift, distributed under the MIT license, and actively maintained with very frequent releases. The project documents itself at openoats.com and targets users who want a privacy-respecting, self-hostable alternative to cloud meeting copilots, combining live transcription with a retrieval layer over personal notes rather than only producing an after-the-fact summary. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Balto is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); OpenOats is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Balto | OpenOats |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Real-time, in-call guidance with dynamic prompts and objection cues | Real-time local transcription of both sides of a conversation on Apple Silicon |
| Standout feature | Agent Assist that surfaces knowledge-base answers live | Live retrieval of relevant talking points from your own notes during meetings |
| Team usage | Automated quality assurance scoring across 100% of calls | Window hidden from screen sharing by default for privacy on calls |
| Integrations | Real-time compliance monitoring with audit trails | Auto-saved transcripts and session logs to local files |
| Languages & capture | Automated call summaries and coaching recommendations | Works fully local via Ollama or with cloud models (OpenRouter, Voyage AI) |
| Best-fit workflow | Integrations with CRMs and phone systems such as Salesforce and RingCentral | MIT-licensed, self-hostable Swift application |
Balto
Choose Balto if you need guiding agents live through objections and compliance requirements — strengths include guides agents during the call rather than only analyzing afterward.
OpenOats
Choose OpenOats if you need getting live, context-aware prompts from your own notes during sales or customer calls — strengths include local on-device transcription keeps meeting audio private.
Balto
OpenOats
It depends on your workflow. Balto is strong for guiding agents live through objections and compliance requirements, while OpenOats is strong for getting live, context-aware prompts from your own notes during sales or customer calls. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Balto is a free tier with paid upgrades and OpenOats is a free tier with paid upgrades. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
Often yes: teams combine tools when one handles capture and another handles analysis.
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