Dscout: Experience research platform for moderated interviews, diary studies, and usability testing with AI transcription, themes, and analysis. Pluely: A lightweight open-source desktop AI meeting assistant that captures system audio for live transcription and on-call answers without joining as a visible bot. 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 Pluely when running a privacy-conscious, locally processed meeting helper via ollama matters most. Trial each on a few real meetings before you commit — the better fit usually shows fast.
Experience research platform for moderated interviews, diary studies, and usability testing with AI transcription, themes, and analysis.
A lightweight open-source desktop AI meeting assistant that captures system audio for live transcription and on-call answers without joining as a visible bot.
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
Pluely is an open-source AI meeting assistant created by independent developer Srikanthnani and released in 2025 as a privacy-first, bot-free alternative to commercial in-meeting copilots. Built with Tauri, the app is roughly 10MB and launches quickly, running as an always-on-top overlay on macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows, and Linux. Rather than sending a participant into your call, Pluely captures system audio and microphone input directly on your device, converts speech to text, and can surface AI responses and notes during a meeting, interview, or presentation. It is bring-your-own-key, so users connect their own provider credentials; it supports a wide range of large language models, including OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Grok, Mistral, Cohere, Ollama, and custom endpoints, alongside multiple speech-to-text engines such as Whisper, Deepgram, ElevenLabs, Groq, and Azure. Because it is GPL-licensed and fully inspectable, teams can audit or modify the code, and local model options via Ollama allow processing to stay on the machine. As an indie project it depends on external API keys for most capabilities and is still maturing. Confirm features and any usage policies on the official site. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Dscout is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Pluely is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Dscout | Pluely |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Moderated live and uploaded video interviews with observer support | Bot-free capture of system audio and microphone for live transcription |
| Standout feature | AI Moderator that dynamically guides participants and captures feedback | Always-on-top overlay app for macOS, Windows, and Linux |
| Team usage | Automated transcription of interviews and responses | Bring-your-own-key support for many LLMs (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Mistral, Cohere, Ollama, custom) |
| Integrations | AI-generated summaries of open-ended and video responses | Multiple speech-to-text providers (Whisper, Deepgram, ElevenLabs, Groq, Azure, and others) |
| Languages & capture | AI-generated themes as smart tags and surfaced notable moments | Lightweight (~10MB) and fast to launch |
| Best-fit workflow | Diary studies, usability testing, intercepts, and media-rich surveys | Open source under GPL with optional local processing via Ollama |
Dscout
Choose Dscout if you need running and transcribing moderated user interviews — strengths include supports many research methods beyond interviews in one platform.
Pluely
Choose Pluely if you need getting live transcription and ai assistance during meetings without a visible bot in the call — strengths include free and open source with fully inspectable code.
Dscout
Pluely
It depends on your workflow. Dscout is strong for running and transcribing moderated user interviews, while Pluely is strong for getting live transcription and ai assistance during meetings without a visible bot in the call. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Dscout is a free tier with paid upgrades and Pluely is a free tier with paid upgrades. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
Yes. Many teams run more than one meeting assistant when the workflows are complementary.
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