BuildBetter: A no-bot meeting recorder (BB Recorder) that captures and processes calls locally on Mac, with optional cloud upload for team collaboration. OpenOats: Open-source macOS meeting note-taker that transcribes calls locally and surfaces relevant talking points from your own notes in real time. The right pick comes down to team size, budget, and the workflows you want to automate.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist BuildBetter when product teams aggregating customer-call insights into jira, linear, or notion matters most, and OpenOats when privately transcribing meetings on a mac without sending audio to the cloud matters most. Run both through a week of actual calls to see which suits your workflow.
A no-bot meeting recorder (BB Recorder) that captures and processes calls locally on Mac, with optional cloud upload for team collaboration.
Open-source macOS meeting note-taker that transcribes calls locally and surfaces relevant talking points from your own notes in real time.
BuildBetter offers BB Recorder, a no-bot meeting recorder that captures meetings by recording system audio directly on the device rather than sending a bot into the call. On macOS it can run as a menu-bar (notch-style) recorder, a floating overlay, or a full-window app, and it includes smart auto-detection that begins recording when it detects a call. Recording, transcription, summarization, and even a live AI assistant for asking questions during a call can run locally using on-device models, so notes and transcripts can stay on the user's machine. Users can optionally upload recordings to BuildBetter's cloud for enhanced transcripts with speaker diarization, AI-powered summaries, and team collaboration. The broader BuildBetter platform is oriented toward product teams and customer-facing roles, helping aggregate insights across many calls and route them into tools such as Jira, Linear, and Notion. BB Recorder is available on macOS as well as iOS and Android. It is aimed at product, sales, customer success, and support teams that want privacy-conscious local capture with the option to escalate to cloud-based team features. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
OpenOats is an open-source macOS meeting note-taker, created by Yazin Akkawi (the project was previously named OpenGranola before being renamed), that sits alongside your calls and both transcribes the conversation and helps you contribute to it. It captures both sides of a meeting and transcribes audio locally on Apple Silicon so audio never leaves the device, while in real time it searches your own markdown or plain-text knowledge base to surface relevant talking points and things worth saying during the discussion. The application window is hidden from screen sharing by default, which lets it stay private during video calls, and transcripts and session logs are auto-saved locally. OpenOats supports both fully local operation through Ollama and cloud providers such as OpenRouter and Voyage AI, so users can choose between complete offline privacy and hosted models. It is written primarily in Swift, distributed under the MIT license, and actively maintained with very frequent releases. The project documents itself at openoats.com and targets users who want a privacy-respecting, self-hostable alternative to cloud meeting copilots, combining live transcription with a retrieval layer over personal notes rather than only producing an after-the-fact summary. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
BuildBetter is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); OpenOats is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | BuildBetter | OpenOats |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | No-bot recording that captures system audio locally | Real-time local transcription of both sides of a conversation on Apple Silicon |
| Standout feature | macOS recorder with menu-bar, floating overlay, and full-window modes | Live retrieval of relevant talking points from your own notes during meetings |
| Team usage | Smart auto-detection that starts recording when a call is detected | Window hidden from screen sharing by default for privacy on calls |
| Integrations | Local transcription, summarization, and a live AI assistant | Auto-saved transcripts and session logs to local files |
| Languages & capture | Optional cloud upload for speaker diarization and team collaboration | Works fully local via Ollama or with cloud models (OpenRouter, Voyage AI) |
| Best-fit workflow | Routes insights into tools like Jira, Linear, and Notion | MIT-licensed, self-hostable Swift application |
BuildBetter
Choose BuildBetter if you need product teams aggregating customer-call insights into jira, linear, or notion — strengths include local processing keeps recordings and notes on the device by default.
OpenOats
Choose OpenOats if you need getting live, context-aware prompts from your own notes during sales or customer calls — strengths include local on-device transcription keeps meeting audio private.
BuildBetter
OpenOats
It depends on your workflow. BuildBetter is strong for product teams aggregating customer-call insights into jira, linear, or notion, while OpenOats is strong for getting live, context-aware prompts from your own notes during sales or customer calls. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
BuildBetter is a free tier with paid upgrades and OpenOats is a free tier with paid upgrades. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
Yes. Many teams run more than one meeting assistant when the workflows are complementary.
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