Bold: Bot-free AI notetaker by Bold App Studios that records meetings on-device, transcribes with speaker detection, and writes summaries with action items. aTrain: Open-source offline transcription tool from the University of Graz that turns recorded meetings and interviews into text using Whisper and speaker detection. 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 Bold when capturing in-person meetings without sending a meeting bot matters most, and aTrain when universities and public bodies needing gdpr-friendly local transcription matters most. Trial each on a few real meetings before you commit — the better fit usually shows fast.
Bot-free AI notetaker by Bold App Studios that records meetings on-device, transcribes with speaker detection, and writes summaries with action items.
Open-source offline transcription tool from the University of Graz that turns recorded meetings and interviews into text using Whisper and speaker detection.
Bold (Bold: AI Meeting Note Taker) is an AI meeting assistant from Bold App Studios that records conversations directly on the user's device and then automatically transcribes and summarizes them rather than sending a bot into the call. It offers one-tap recording with real-time transcription, can capture audio in the background whether the screen is on or off, and supports uploading existing audio files for transcription. The app performs speaker detection and diarization across multiple participants, and its AI writes concise summaries that surface action items, decisions, and key insights. Notes are searchable and can be filtered by date, speaker, topic, or keyword, and recordings include replay with smart navigation. Bold supports shareable web links and integrations including Google Meet calendar connection, Notion, Slack, email, and PDF export, with customizable templates for organizing notes. The vendor states the app supports several languages including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Japanese, and offers end-to-end encryption and privacy controls. Bold is available across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro, with a free tier plus premium subscription options, and is actively maintained in 2025/2026. 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
Bold 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 | Bold | aTrain |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | One-tap on-device recording with real-time transcription | Offline, fully local transcription with no data leaving the device |
| Standout feature | Speaker detection and diarization for multiple participants | Built on OpenAI Whisper via the faster-whisper engine |
| Team usage | AI summaries highlighting action items and decisions | Speaker detection/diarization using pyannote.audio |
| Integrations | Background recording with screen on or off, plus audio-file upload | Exports compatible with MAXQDA, ATLAS.ti, and NVivo |
| Languages & capture | Searchable, filterable notes with shareable web links | Graphical interface requiring no programming skills |
| Best-fit workflow | Integrations with Google Meet, Notion, Slack, email, and PDF export | NVIDIA GPU acceleration support |
Bold
Choose Bold if you need capturing in-person meetings without sending a meeting bot — strengths include bot-free, on-device capture for in-person and virtual meetings.
aTrain
Choose aTrain if you need researchers transcribing recorded interviews for qualitative analysis — strengths include free and open source under agpl-3.0.
Bold
aTrain
It depends on your workflow. Bold is strong for capturing in-person meetings without sending a meeting bot, while aTrain is strong for researchers transcribing recorded interviews for qualitative analysis. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Bold 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.
Often yes: teams combine tools when one handles capture and another handles analysis.
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