Is Descript or Meeting Transcriber better for AI meeting notes?

It depends on your workflow. Descript is strong for editing podcasts and videos by editing the transcript, while Meeting Transcriber is strong for privacy-conscious professionals who want meeting transcripts and notes kept on their own mac. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.

How do Descript and Meeting Transcriber compare on price?

Descript is a free tier with paid upgrades and Meeting Transcriber is a free tier with paid upgrades. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.

Can I use both Descript and Meeting Transcriber?

Often yes: teams combine tools when one handles capture and another handles analysis.

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Descript vs Meeting Transcriber

Descript: Video/podcast editor with transcription and meeting recording Meeting Transcriber: Open-source, local-first macOS app that auto-records Teams, Zoom, and Webex calls and transcribes, diarizes, and summarizes them entirely on-device. Below, they line up on price, capture method, and how each fits a real meeting stack.

How Hosiqo compares and tests tools

Final recommendation

Shortlist Descript when editing podcasts and videos by editing the transcript matters most, and Meeting Transcriber when recording and summarizing teams, zoom, or webex calls without inviting a cloud meeting bot matters most. Run both through a week of actual calls to see which suits your workflow.

Descript

CustomAI Meeting Assistants

Video/podcast editor with transcription and meeting recording

Automatic transcription of imported or recorded audio and videoMultitrack audio and video editingOne-click caption and subtitle generation

Details Visit

Meeting Transcriber

CustomAI Meeting Assistants

Open-source, local-first macOS app that auto-records Teams, Zoom, and Webex calls and transcribes, diarizes, and summarizes them entirely on-device.

Automatic recording of Teams, Zoom, and Webex meetings via a macOS menu bar app

About Descript

Descript is an audio and video editing platform built around text-based editing, where the spoken content of a recording is automatically transcribed and the resulting transcript becomes the primary way to edit the media. When users import or record audio and video, Descript generates a transcript that they can read, search, and edit, with changes to the text reflected in the underlying recording. The platform also offers one-click caption and subtitle generation so the transcribed words can be displayed on screen and styled to match a project. In addition to transcription and captions, Descript provides features for podcast and video production, including multitrack editing, screen recording, and AI-assisted tools. Because editing the transcript edits the media, it is especially useful for podcasters, video creators, and teams who want to cut filler, rearrange segments, or repurpose content without working frame by frame. Descript is aimed at content creators, marketers, educators, and teams who want transcription, captions, and editing combined in a single workflow. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.

Best suited for

Editing podcasts and videos by editing the transcript
Generating captions and subtitles for published content
Producing searchable transcripts from recorded sessions

About Meeting Transcriber

Meeting Transcriber is an open-source, local-first meeting transcriber for macOS, distributed under the MIT license and developed in the open on GitHub (pasrom/meeting-transcriber) with its own product site at meetingtranscriber.app. It runs as a menu bar application that automatically detects and records calls on Teams, Zoom, and Webex, capturing the meeting app's audio and your microphone as separate tracks so that transcription and speaker separation stay clean. Transcription happens fully on-device using one of three selectable speech-recognition engines: WhisperKit (covering 99+ languages), Parakeet TDT v3 (25 European languages with a small, fast model), or Qwen3-ASR (30 languages, requiring macOS 15+). It performs dual-track diarization and can recognize recurring speakers by storing voice embeddings across meetings and matching them with cosine similarity. After a meeting, it can generate a structured Markdown protocol containing a summary, participants, topics discussed, decisions, tasks, open questions, and the full transcript, using either the Claude Code CLI, any OpenAI-compatible endpoint such as Ollama or LM Studio, or a transcript-only mode with no LLM. Because everything runs locally, audio, transcripts, and summaries stay on the user's Mac. It installs via Homebrew Cask and requires macOS 14.2 or later. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.

Best suited for

Privacy-conscious professionals who want meeting transcripts and notes kept on their own Mac
Recording and summarizing Teams, Zoom, or Webex calls without inviting a cloud meeting bot
Generating structured Markdown meeting protocols with decisions and action items via a local LLM

Feature	Descript	Meeting Transcriber
Core capability	Automatic transcription of imported or recorded audio and video	Automatic recording of Teams, Zoom, and Webex meetings via a macOS menu bar app
Standout feature	Text-based editing where editing the transcript edits the media	On-device transcription with selectable engines: WhisperKit, Parakeet TDT v3, or Qwen3-ASR
Team usage	One-click caption and subtitle generation	Dual-track diarization with separate app and microphone tracks for clean speaker separation
Integrations	Multitrack audio and video editing	Recurring-speaker recognition using stored voice embeddings matched by cosine similarity
Languages & capture	Screen and audio recording built in	Structured Markdown protocols (summary, participants, topics, decisions, tasks, open questions, transcript)
Best-fit workflow	Automatic transcription of imported or recorded audio and video	Pluggable summarization backends: Claude Code CLI, OpenAI-compatible APIs (Ollama, LM Studio), or transcript-only

Descript vs Meeting Transcriber

About Descript

About Meeting Transcriber

Pricing comparison

Feature table

Best for

Pros & cons

FAQ

Is Descript or Meeting Transcriber better for AI meeting notes?

How do Descript and Meeting Transcriber compare on price?

Can I use both Descript and Meeting Transcriber?

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