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. Scribewave: Scribewave is a European AI transcription platform that converts audio and video into editable text across dozens of languages and dialects, with speaker diarization and an AI assistant for summaries and 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 BB Recorder when regulated or privacy-sensitive teams that cannot send audio to the cloud matters most, and Scribewave when universities and qualitative researchers transcribing recorded sessions with speaker labels 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.
Scribewave is a European AI transcription platform that converts audio and video into editable text across dozens of languages and dialects, with speaker diarization and an AI assistant for summaries and notes.
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
Scribewave is an AI transcription platform from Belgian company Quantum Noodle BV (Leuven/Beerzel) that automatically converts audio and video files into editable text. Users upload recordings, the AI transcribes them, and an integrated editor lets people review and correct the text while audio plays, with click-to-audio sync so clicking a word jumps to that moment in the recording. The platform supports a wide range of languages and dialects, positioning itself around linguistic diversity and regional and mixed-language speech rather than English alone. It includes speaker diarization, custom vocabularies to preserve names and jargon, batch uploads, and exports to formats such as Word, Google Docs, and subtitle files (SRT/VTT), plus the ability to render captioned videos. An AI assistant can answer questions about a transcript and generate summaries, chapters, and meeting notes with timecode references. Scribewave emphasizes data ownership, European servers, and GDPR compliance, and states it does not use customer content to train its models. It targets journalists, researchers, universities, and content creators.
Best suited for
BB Recorder is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Scribewave is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | BB Recorder | Scribewave |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | No-bot capture of system audio directly on the device | AI transcription of audio and video files into editable text across many languages and dialects |
| Standout feature | Fully on-device recording, transcription, and summarization | Speaker diarization and speaker identification, including handling overlapping speech |
| Team usage | Local AI chat to ask questions about a captured meeting | Synchronized editor with click-to-audio word sync for review and correction |
| Integrations | Calendar linking to associate recordings with scheduled meetings | AI assistant that answers questions and generates summaries, chapters, and meeting notes with timecodes |
| Languages & capture | Available for macOS and iOS | Custom vocabularies to preserve names, jargon, and domain terms |
| Best-fit workflow | Built by the BuildBetter team with an AI transparency policy | Exports to Word, Google Docs, PDF, and subtitle formats (SRT/VTT), plus captioned video output |
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.
Scribewave
Choose Scribewave if you need journalists and researchers transcribing and reviewing interviews across multiple languages — strengths include strong multilingual and dialect coverage with a focus on smaller and regional languages.
BB Recorder
Scribewave
It depends on your workflow. BB Recorder is strong for regulated or privacy-sensitive teams that cannot send audio to the cloud, while Scribewave is strong for journalists and researchers transcribing and reviewing interviews across multiple languages. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
BB Recorder is a free tier with paid upgrades and Scribewave 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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