Dscout: Experience research platform for moderated interviews, diary studies, and usability testing with AI transcription, themes, and analysis. OpenOats: Open-source macOS meeting note-taker that transcribes calls locally and surfaces relevant talking points from your own notes in real time. 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 Dscout when running and transcribing moderated user interviews matters most, and OpenOats when privately transcribing meetings on a mac without sending audio to the cloud matters most. Try them side by side on real calls before deciding — needs vary by team.
Experience research platform for moderated interviews, diary studies, and usability testing with AI transcription, themes, and analysis.
Open-source macOS meeting note-taker that transcribes calls locally and surfaces relevant talking points from your own notes in real time.
Dscout is an experience research platform that pairs human participant feedback with AI tools to help teams gather and analyze qualitative insights at scale. It supports a range of research methods, including live and uploaded moderated interviews, usability testing with heat maps and task success metrics, real-time site intercepts, field studies, diary studies with multiple activities, and media-rich surveys. For interviews, Dscout simplifies scheduling across time zones, integrates incentives, supports observers, and can capture both a participant's face and screen, and it also offers an AI Moderator that can autonomously guide participants, seek clarification, and capture feedback. On the analysis side, Dscout provides automated transcription, AI-generated summaries of open-ended and video responses, AI-generated themes presented as smart tags for pattern identification, and surfacing of notable moments that highlight strong opinions or surprising insights. Teams can recruit from Dscout's verified Scout participant pool or bring their own audience. Known historically for mobile and in-context research, Dscout positions itself as an AI-native platform that helps researchers capture high-fidelity feedback and move quickly from raw sessions to organized, analyzable insights. 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
Dscout 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 | Dscout | OpenOats |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Moderated live and uploaded video interviews with observer support | Real-time local transcription of both sides of a conversation on Apple Silicon |
| Standout feature | AI Moderator that dynamically guides participants and captures feedback | Live retrieval of relevant talking points from your own notes during meetings |
| Team usage | Automated transcription of interviews and responses | Window hidden from screen sharing by default for privacy on calls |
| Integrations | AI-generated summaries of open-ended and video responses | Auto-saved transcripts and session logs to local files |
| Languages & capture | AI-generated themes as smart tags and surfaced notable moments | Works fully local via Ollama or with cloud models (OpenRouter, Voyage AI) |
| Best-fit workflow | Diary studies, usability testing, intercepts, and media-rich surveys | MIT-licensed, self-hostable Swift application |
Dscout
Choose Dscout if you need running and transcribing moderated user interviews — strengths include supports many research methods beyond interviews in one platform.
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.
Dscout
OpenOats
It depends on your workflow. Dscout is strong for running and transcribing moderated user interviews, while OpenOats is strong for getting live, context-aware prompts from your own notes during sales or customer calls. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Dscout 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.
Often yes: teams combine tools when one handles capture and another handles analysis.
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