Cluely: Cluely is a real-time AI meeting assistant that runs as a desktop overlay to provide live transcription, automatic meeting notes, and on-demand AI answers during calls. ownscribe: Local-first command-line tool that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings on macOS entirely on-device, with natural-language search across notes. This comparison weighs them on pricing, features, and everyday workflow fit.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Cluely when getting live transcripts and notes of sales, client, or team calls matters most, and ownscribe when keeping fully on-device transcripts and summaries for privacy-sensitive discussions matters most. Trial each on a few real meetings before you commit — the better fit usually shows fast.
Cluely is a real-time AI meeting assistant that runs as a desktop overlay to provide live transcription, automatic meeting notes, and on-demand AI answers during calls.
Local-first command-line tool that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings on macOS entirely on-device, with natural-language search across notes.
Cluely is a real-time AI meeting assistant that runs as a desktop overlay (plus an iOS app) rather than joining calls as a visible bot. During a meeting it provides live transcription, automatically generates meeting notes and summaries, and surfaces on-demand AI answers when you press Cmd/Ctrl+Enter (for example, suggesting what to say or follow-up questions). It works across common conferencing tools including Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, and Slack, and supports more than 12 languages such as English, Chinese, and Spanish. Cluely lets users add custom prompting and keybinds and upload reference files. A free Starter plan offers limited AI responses, limited notetaking, and up to three custom files. A notable positioning point is that the app is marketed as "undetectable" and designed to stay invisible to screen sharing and not appear in screen shares, a capability fully unlocked on its top tier.
Best suited for
ownscribe is a local-first meeting transcription and summarization command-line tool that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings entirely on the user's own machine without sending data to external servers. It is MIT-licensed and actively maintained, with v0.12.0 released in June 2026, and is written primarily in Python with a Swift component for system audio capture. On macOS 14.2 and later it captures system audio through Core Audio, and it transcribes with WhisperX to produce word-level timestamps, with optional speaker diarization via PyAnnote. For summaries it ships with a built-in local model (Phi-4-mini) and can also connect to Ollama or OpenAI-compatible backends, offering multiple templates tailored to meetings, lectures, and brief summaries. A standout feature is its natural-language search: the ask command lets users query across their stored meeting notes to retrieve relevant information. Quality-of-life features include silence-based auto-stop so recordings end cleanly when a meeting goes quiet. Because it is a CLI distributed through GitHub and runs entirely on local hardware, ownscribe targets developers and privacy-focused users who prefer scriptable, terminal-driven workflows over a graphical meeting notetaker while keeping all audio and transcripts on-device. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Cluely is from $0/mo (freemium); ownscribe is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Cluely | ownscribe |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Live transcription | Local-first recording, transcription, and summarization via CLI |
| Standout feature | Real-time meeting notes | System audio capture on macOS 14.2+ through Core Audio |
| Team usage | On-demand AI answers | WhisperX transcription with word-level timestamps |
| Integrations | Multi-language support | Optional speaker diarization via PyAnnote |
| Languages & capture | Custom prompting and keybinds | Local summarization with a built-in Phi-4-mini model, plus Ollama and OpenAI-compatible backends |
| Best-fit workflow | Live transcription | Natural-language search across meeting notes with the ask command |
Cluely
Choose Cluely if you need getting live transcripts and notes of sales, client, or team calls — strengths include works across major conferencing tools (zoom, google meet, microsoft teams, webex, slack).
ownscribe
Choose ownscribe if you need developers capturing and summarizing meetings from the terminal on a mac — strengths include runs entirely on-device with no data sent to external servers.
Cluely
ownscribe
It depends on your workflow. Cluely is strong for getting live transcripts and notes of sales, client, or team calls, while ownscribe is strong for developers capturing and summarizing meetings from the terminal on a mac. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Cluely is from $0/mo and ownscribe 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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