Bold: Bot-free AI notetaker by Bold App Studios that records meetings on-device, transcribes with speaker detection, and writes summaries with action items. oTranscribe: A free, open-source web app that eases manual transcription of recorded interviews by integrating media playback controls beside a text editor. 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 Bold when capturing in-person meetings without sending a meeting bot matters most, and oTranscribe when academic and qualitative researchers transcribing fieldwork or oral-history recordings 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.
A free, open-source web app that eases manual transcription of recorded interviews by integrating media playback controls beside a text editor.
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
oTranscribe is a free, open-source (MIT license) web app, created by Elliot Bentley and maintained by the MuckRock Foundation, that takes the pain out of transcribing recorded interviews. It runs in the browser on desktop computers and places an integrated audio or video player alongside a text editor, so you can pause, rewind, and fast-forward your recording using keyboard shortcuts without taking your hands off the keys or switching between apps. It is built for journalists, researchers, oral historians, and students who type up interviews and recordings themselves. Rather than using automatic speech recognition, oTranscribe assists manual transcription: you listen and type, inserting interactive timestamps (Ctrl+J) that you can click to jump back to that moment in the media. Your transcript autosaves to the browser's local storage, and audio files never leave your computer, keeping work private. Finished transcripts can be exported to Markdown, plain text, or oTranscribe's own .otr format, or sent to Google Drive. Rich-text formatting and adjustable playback speed are supported.
Best suited for
Bold is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); oTranscribe is open source (open source). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Bold | oTranscribe |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | One-tap on-device recording with real-time transcription | Integrated audio/video player next to the transcript editor |
| Standout feature | Speaker detection and diarization for multiple participants | Keyboard shortcuts to pause, rewind, fast-forward, and adjust playback speed without leaving the keyboard |
| Team usage | AI summaries highlighting action items and decisions | Clickable interactive timestamps that jump to the matching point in the media |
| Integrations | Background recording with screen on or off, plus audio-file upload | Automatic saving to browser local storage with transcript history backups |
| Languages & capture | Searchable, filterable notes with shareable web links | Export to Markdown, plain text, .otr format, or send to Google Drive |
| Best-fit workflow | Integrations with Google Meet, Notion, Slack, email, and PDF export | Local, private processing - audio and transcript never leave the user's computer |
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.
oTranscribe
Choose oTranscribe if you need journalists typing up recorded interviews for articles — strengths include completely free and open source under the mit license.
Bold
oTranscribe
It depends on your workflow. Bold is strong for capturing in-person meetings without sending a meeting bot, while oTranscribe is strong for journalists typing up recorded interviews for articles. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Bold is a free tier with paid upgrades and oTranscribe is open source. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
You can — some teams pair them when each covers a different part of the meeting workflow.
More head-to-head comparisons involving Bold and oTranscribe.
Bold: Bot-free AI notetaker by Bold App Studios that records meetings on-device, transcribes with speaker detection, and writes summaries with action items. Boostlingo: Language access platform whose AI Pro engine delivers live AI captioning, translation, and transcription for meetings, webinars, and events. The right pick comes down to team size, budget, and the workflows you want to automate.
Bold: Bot-free AI notetaker by Bold App Studios that records meetings on-device, transcribes with speaker detection, and writes summaries with action items. BriefMe: Italian mobile app that records conversations, transcribes them automatically, and generates AI summaries with key points, decisions, and action items. Below, they line up on price, capture method, and how each fits a real meeting stack.
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Bold: Bot-free AI notetaker by Bold App Studios that records meetings on-device, transcribes with speaker detection, and writes summaries with action items. Calendly Notetaker: An AI meeting notetaker built into the Calendly scheduling platform that records meetings and generates summaries, transcripts, and action items. Which one wins depends on your platform mix, budget, and how hands-off you want notes to be.
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