Condens: UX research platform for storing, transcribing, tagging, and analyzing user interviews in a searchable, collaborative repository. Minutes: Open-source, local-first conversation memory layer that records and transcribes meetings, diarizes speakers, and stores searchable notes as markdown for AI agents. 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 Condens when transcribing and tagging user interview recordings matters most, and Minutes when recording and transcribing calls locally for users who refuse cloud meeting tools matters most. Try them side by side on real calls before deciding — needs vary by team.
UX research platform for storing, transcribing, tagging, and analyzing user interviews in a searchable, collaborative repository.
Open-source, local-first conversation memory layer that records and transcribes meetings, diarizes speakers, and stores searchable notes as markdown for AI agents.
Condens is a user research platform that helps research teams store, analyze, share, and scale customer data in one collaborative hub. It supports importing recordings, notes, and user feedback, and provides automated multilingual transcription with AI-powered speaker recognition and automated captions. For analysis, Condens offers a split-screen interface that lets researchers review raw data and tag it simultaneously, along with AI-driven pattern identification across datasets and quick generation of evidence-backed findings. All research lives in a searchable, centralized repository with cross-project insight discovery, filtering, and role-based access control for managing confidential data. Condens emphasizes real-time collaboration, allowing multiple team members to build, edit, and tag data together, and integrates with tools such as Slack, Teams, Figma, and Miro, plus whiteboard functionality for interactive sessions. Additional AI capabilities include automated bookmarking, summarization, and pattern detection across multiple studies. Positioned as a lean, practical tool for researchers who want to move quickly, Condens aims to streamline the path from interview transcripts to shareable insights without the overhead of heavier enterprise systems. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Minutes, built by Mat Silverstein, is an open-source, privacy-first conversation memory layer that captures meetings, calls, voice memos, and dictation and turns them into searchable, AI-accessible notes. It transcribes audio locally using whisper.cpp or Parakeet so audio never has to leave the machine, performs speaker diarization to separate voices, and extracts decisions and action items, writing everything to the user's own disk as plain markdown files with structured YAML frontmatter. Because the output lives in a local folder (for example ~/meetings/), the notes can sync across devices through iCloud, Dropbox, or Google Drive and can be read directly by AI tools. A central design goal is integration with AI assistants: Minutes runs an MCP server exposing a large set of tools so coding and chat agents such as Claude, Codex, Gemini CLI, and others can query past conversations, track relationships across meetings, and surface what was promised to whom. It ships as a macOS desktop app with a menu-bar recorder and AI assistant, plus a cross-platform command-line interface, and includes a dictation hotkey mode. The project is MIT licensed, installable via Homebrew, and actively maintained with frequent releases, making it a fully self-hostable option for people who want durable, private, searchable meeting memory rather than a cloud subscription. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Condens is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Minutes is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Condens | Minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Automated multilingual transcription with speaker recognition and captions | Local transcription with whisper.cpp or Parakeet, no cloud audio upload |
| Standout feature | Split-screen interface for simultaneous data review and tagging | Speaker diarization to attribute who said what |
| Team usage | AI-driven pattern identification across datasets | Plain-markdown output with YAML frontmatter stored on your own disk |
| Integrations | Searchable centralized repository with cross-project discovery | MCP server exposing tools so AI agents can query meeting history |
| Languages & capture | Real-time collaborative analysis and tagging | Cross-meeting search, relationship tracking, and action-item extraction |
| Best-fit workflow | Integrations with Slack, Teams, Figma, and Miro plus whiteboards | macOS desktop app plus cross-platform CLI and dictation hotkey mode |
Condens
Choose Condens if you need transcribing and tagging user interview recordings — strengths include fast, practical workflow from transcript to tagged insights.
Minutes
Choose Minutes if you need building a private, searchable memory of meetings and voice notes that ai agents can query — strengths include fully local-first and mit licensed, keeping conversation data private and portable.
Condens
Minutes
It depends on your workflow. Condens is strong for transcribing and tagging user interview recordings, while Minutes is strong for building a private, searchable memory of meetings and voice notes that ai agents can query. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Condens is a free tier with paid upgrades and Minutes 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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