Carv: AI assistant for recruiters that records, transcribes, and takes notes during interviews and intake calls, then drafts documents and updates the ATS. aTrain: Open-source offline transcription tool from the University of Graz that turns recorded meetings and interviews into text using Whisper and speaker detection. Below, they line up on price, capture method, and how each fits a real meeting stack.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Carv when transcribing and summarizing candidate interviews hands-free matters most, and aTrain when universities and public bodies needing gdpr-friendly local transcription matters most. Test each on your own meetings; the right choice tends to become obvious quickly.
AI assistant for recruiters that records, transcribes, and takes notes during interviews and intake calls, then drafts documents and updates the ATS.
Open-source offline transcription tool from the University of Graz that turns recorded meetings and interviews into text using Whisper and speaker detection.
Carv is an AI platform for recruiters that records, transcribes, and takes notes during interviews, intake calls, and hiring meetings so recruiters can stay present in the conversation rather than typing notes. During candidate interviews it captures a full verbatim transcript, flags any planned questions that went unanswered at the end of the call, and uses the transcript to auto-generate a candidate profile. For intake calls with hiring managers, Carv captures the requirements discussed and can automatically draft a job description in the recruiter's own style and tone of voice. Beyond note-taking, Carv positions itself as an agentic recruiting assistant that takes over repetitive administrative work, from document creation to updating the applicant tracking system, and includes an AI companion that carries context about how the user works. The platform integrates with ATS and HR systems and offers analytics and insights across recruiting activity. By turning recruiting conversations into structured notes, profiles, and documents, Carv aims to cut down on coordination and admin time so recruiters can focus on connecting with candidates and hiring managers. 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
Carv 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 | Carv | aTrain |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Records, transcribes, and takes notes during interviews, intakes, and meetings | Offline, fully local transcription with no data leaving the device |
| Standout feature | Full verbatim interview transcription with unanswered-question flagging | Built on OpenAI Whisper via the faster-whisper engine |
| Team usage | Auto-generated candidate profiles from interview transcripts | Speaker detection/diarization using pyannote.audio |
| Integrations | Automatic job description drafting from intake calls | Exports compatible with MAXQDA, ATLAS.ti, and NVivo |
| Languages & capture | ATS and HR system integrations with automated updates | Graphical interface requiring no programming skills |
| Best-fit workflow | AI companion that retains context on the recruiter's workflow | NVIDIA GPU acceleration support |
Carv
Choose Carv if you need transcribing and summarizing candidate interviews hands-free — strengths include captures both candidate interviews and hiring-manager intake calls.
aTrain
Choose aTrain if you need researchers transcribing recorded interviews for qualitative analysis — strengths include free and open source under agpl-3.0.
Carv
aTrain
It depends on your workflow. Carv is strong for transcribing and summarizing candidate interviews hands-free, while aTrain is strong for researchers transcribing recorded interviews for qualitative analysis. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Carv 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.
Sure. Running both makes sense when their strengths don't overlap and the budget allows.
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