Basil AI: On-device AI note taker for Apple devices that transcribes and summarizes meetings entirely offline, with no cloud upload. Meeting Transcriber: Open-source, local-first macOS app that auto-records Teams, Zoom, and Webex calls and transcribes, diarizes, and summarizes them entirely on-device. Which one wins depends on your platform mix, budget, and how hands-off you want notes to be.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Basil AI when transcribing confidential client meetings where data must stay on-device matters most, and Meeting Transcriber when recording and summarizing teams, zoom, or webex calls without inviting a cloud meeting bot matters most. Trial each on a few real meetings before you commit — the better fit usually shows fast.
On-device AI note taker for Apple devices that transcribes and summarizes meetings entirely offline, with no cloud upload.
Open-source, local-first macOS app that auto-records Teams, Zoom, and Webex calls and transcribes, diarizes, and summarizes them entirely on-device.
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
Meeting Transcriber is an open-source, local-first meeting transcriber for macOS, distributed under the MIT license and developed in the open on GitHub (pasrom/meeting-transcriber) with its own product site at meetingtranscriber.app. It runs as a menu bar application that automatically detects and records calls on Teams, Zoom, and Webex, capturing the meeting app's audio and your microphone as separate tracks so that transcription and speaker separation stay clean. Transcription happens fully on-device using one of three selectable speech-recognition engines: WhisperKit (covering 99+ languages), Parakeet TDT v3 (25 European languages with a small, fast model), or Qwen3-ASR (30 languages, requiring macOS 15+). It performs dual-track diarization and can recognize recurring speakers by storing voice embeddings across meetings and matching them with cosine similarity. After a meeting, it can generate a structured Markdown protocol containing a summary, participants, topics discussed, decisions, tasks, open questions, and the full transcript, using either the Claude Code CLI, any OpenAI-compatible endpoint such as Ollama or LM Studio, or a transcript-only mode with no LLM. Because everything runs locally, audio, transcripts, and summaries stay on the user's Mac. It installs via Homebrew Cask and requires macOS 14.2 or later. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Basil AI is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Meeting Transcriber is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Basil AI | Meeting Transcriber |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | 100% on-device transcription with no cloud upload | Automatic recording of Teams, Zoom, and Webex meetings via a macOS menu bar app |
| Standout feature | Speaker diarization to separate participants automatically | On-device transcription with selectable engines: WhisperKit, Parakeet TDT v3, or Qwen3-ASR |
| Team usage | AI-generated summaries, minutes, and key takeaways | Dual-track diarization with separate app and microphone tracks for clean speaker separation |
| Integrations | Support for recording live meetings and uploading audio/video files | Recurring-speaker recognition using stored voice embeddings matched by cosine similarity |
| Languages & capture | Multi-language support and offline (airplane-mode) operation | Structured Markdown protocols (summary, participants, topics, decisions, tasks, open questions, transcript) |
| Best-fit workflow | Export to text, PDF, CSV, and JSON, plus Apple Notes/iCloud/Files | Pluggable summarization backends: Claude Code CLI, OpenAI-compatible APIs (Ollama, LM Studio), or transcript-only |
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.
Meeting Transcriber
Choose Meeting Transcriber if you need privacy-conscious professionals who want meeting transcripts and notes kept on their own mac — strengths include fully open source under the mit license with development in the open on github.
Basil AI
Meeting Transcriber
It depends on your workflow. Basil AI is strong for transcribing confidential client meetings where data must stay on-device, while Meeting Transcriber is strong for privacy-conscious professionals who want meeting transcripts and notes kept on their own mac. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Basil AI is a free tier with paid upgrades and Meeting Transcriber is a free tier with paid upgrades. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
Sure. Running both makes sense when their strengths don't overlap and the budget allows.
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