BB Recorder: A 100% local, no-bot meeting recorder for Mac and iOS that records, transcribes, and summarizes entirely on-device, built by the BuildBetter team. Parabol: Free, open-source agile meeting tool for retrospectives, sprint poker, and standups with automated meeting summaries and AI topic grouping. 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 BB Recorder when regulated or privacy-sensitive teams that cannot send audio to the cloud matters most, and Parabol when facilitating sprint poker estimation sessions matters most. Test each on your own meetings; the right choice tends to become obvious quickly.
A 100% local, no-bot meeting recorder for Mac and iOS that records, transcribes, and summarizes entirely on-device, built by the BuildBetter team.
Free, open-source agile meeting tool for retrospectives, sprint poker, and standups with automated meeting summaries and AI topic grouping.
BB Recorder is a local-first meeting recorder built by the team behind BuildBetter, designed for people who want meeting capture without any data leaving their device. Rather than dropping a bot into a video call, BB Recorder captures the computer's system audio directly, links to the user's calendar, and turns rough conversation audio into clean transcripts and summaries. Its defining characteristic is that recording, transcription, summarization, and even live AI chat about the meeting can all run locally using on-device models, so there is no server holding the audio or transcripts. The company frames this as making a data breach architecturally impossible because there is no cloud store to compromise, and it points to SOC 2 and HIPAA considerations along with an AI transparency policy. BB Recorder is positioned as a genuinely free, unlimited option for Mac, with no trial tiers or required registration when using local models, and a companion iOS app extends capture to the iPhone. It is aimed at privacy-sensitive professionals, regulated teams, and anyone who wants automatic meeting notes without a visible bot or a cloud transcription pipeline. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Parabol is a free, open-source platform built for facilitating agile meetings, with a particular focus on sprint retrospectives alongside estimation (sprint poker) and team check-ins. Its retrospective experience follows a structured reflect, group, vote, discuss, and action workflow compatible with popular formats like Start/Stop/Continue, 4Ls, and Mad/Sad/Glad, plus custom templates. Facilitators get multiplayer drag-and-drop cards, live task editing, timers, dynamic agenda items, discussion threads, emoji reactions, and a large library of retrospective formats and icebreaker questions. At the end of each retro, Parabol automatically generates a meeting summary that rolls up notes and tasks, posts them to a team timeline, and delivers them to attendees via email or Slack so next steps are clear. Its AI capabilities include automatic naming of grouped card clusters and AI topic summaries to speed up synthesis during retros. Parabol integrates with Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Slack, and Mattermost, and because the codebase is publicly available on GitHub, teams can self-host or review how it works. It is used by hundreds of thousands of people across distributed and remote teams. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
BB Recorder is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Parabol is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | BB Recorder | Parabol |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | No-bot capture of system audio directly on the device | Structured retrospective workflow (reflect, group, vote, discuss, action) |
| Standout feature | Fully on-device recording, transcription, and summarization | Automated meeting summaries delivered via email and Slack |
| Team usage | Local AI chat to ask questions about a captured meeting | AI auto-naming of grouped cards and AI topic summaries |
| Integrations | Calendar linking to associate recordings with scheduled meetings | Sprint poker estimation and team standup/check-in templates |
| Languages & capture | Available for macOS and iOS | Large library of retrospective formats and icebreaker questions |
| Best-fit workflow | Built by the BuildBetter team with an AI transparency policy | Integrations with Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Slack, and Mattermost |
BB Recorder
Choose BB Recorder if you need regulated or privacy-sensitive teams that cannot send audio to the cloud — strengths include local-only processing keeps meeting audio and transcripts off external servers.
Parabol
Choose Parabol if you need running sprint retrospectives for remote and distributed agile teams — strengths include free and open-source with the option to self-host.
BB Recorder
Parabol
It depends on your workflow. BB Recorder is strong for regulated or privacy-sensitive teams that cannot send audio to the cloud, while Parabol is strong for running sprint retrospectives for remote and distributed agile teams. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
BB Recorder is a free tier with paid upgrades and Parabol 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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