Basil AI: On-device AI note taker for Apple devices that transcribes and summarizes meetings entirely offline, with no cloud upload. aTrain: Open-source offline transcription tool from the University of Graz that turns recorded meetings and interviews into text using Whisper and speaker detection. Below, they line up on price, capture method, and how each fits a real meeting stack.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Basil AI when transcribing confidential client meetings where data must stay on-device matters most, and aTrain when universities and public bodies needing gdpr-friendly local transcription matters most. Run both through a week of actual calls to see which suits your workflow.
On-device AI note taker for Apple devices that transcribes and summarizes meetings entirely offline, with no cloud upload.
Open-source offline transcription tool from the University of Graz that turns recorded meetings and interviews into text using Whisper and speaker detection.
Basil AI (Basil Private AI Note Taker) is a privacy-first AI transcription and note-taking application that processes all audio locally on Apple devices using Apple's on-device speech and machine-learning frameworks. Because recordings, transcripts, and summaries never leave the device and no cloud servers are involved, Basil is positioned for privacy-conscious professionals handling sensitive conversations, including lawyers conducting client meetings and other client-services practitioners where confidentiality matters. The app records live meetings and can also process uploaded audio and DRM-free video files, then generates transcripts with speaker diarization plus AI summaries and key takeaways. It supports a large set of languages and can work offline, including in airplane mode. Outputs can be exported to formats such as text, PDF, CSV, and JSON, and integrated with Apple's ecosystem (Apple Notes, iCloud Drive, Files). Basil is distributed on the Apple App Store by TONSOR LLC and is available as a universal app across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision, with recent iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS versions required. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
aTrain is a free, open-source desktop application for offline speech transcription, developed by researchers at the Business Analytics and Data Science Center of the University of Graz in Austria. It provides a graphical interface around OpenAI's Whisper model (via the faster-whisper implementation) so users with no programming experience can transcribe recorded meetings, interviews, lectures, and other audio. Because all processing happens locally on the user's own computer, no audio or text is uploaded to any server, which makes it well suited to privacy-sensitive and GDPR-conscious environments such as universities, public institutions, and research teams. aTrain supports a wide range of languages and adds speaker detection through pyannote.audio so contributions from different participants can be separated. Transcripts can be exported in formats compatible with qualitative-analysis software such as MAXQDA, ATLAS.ti, and NVivo. It runs on Windows (including a Microsoft Store distribution) with GPU acceleration on NVIDIA hardware, and is distributed under the AGPL-3.0 license. It is best for researchers, academics, and organizations that need accurate, local, no-cloud transcription of recorded conversations. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Basil AI is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); aTrain is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Basil AI | aTrain |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | 100% on-device transcription with no cloud upload | Offline, fully local transcription with no data leaving the device |
| Standout feature | Speaker diarization to separate participants automatically | Built on OpenAI Whisper via the faster-whisper engine |
| Team usage | AI-generated summaries, minutes, and key takeaways | Speaker detection/diarization using pyannote.audio |
| Integrations | Support for recording live meetings and uploading audio/video files | Exports compatible with MAXQDA, ATLAS.ti, and NVivo |
| Languages & capture | Multi-language support and offline (airplane-mode) operation | Graphical interface requiring no programming skills |
| Best-fit workflow | Export to text, PDF, CSV, and JSON, plus Apple Notes/iCloud/Files | NVIDIA GPU acceleration support |
Basil AI
Choose Basil AI if you need transcribing confidential client meetings where data must stay on-device — strengths include strong privacy posture since data never leaves the device.
aTrain
Choose aTrain if you need researchers transcribing recorded interviews for qualitative analysis — strengths include free and open source under agpl-3.0.
Basil AI
aTrain
It depends on your workflow. Basil AI is strong for transcribing confidential client meetings where data must stay on-device, while aTrain is strong for researchers transcribing recorded interviews for qualitative analysis. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Basil AI is a free tier with paid upgrades and aTrain 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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