Meetingnotes and Shadow are both AI meeting assistants for recording, transcription, and summaries, compared here on pricing, features, and workflow fit. Meetingnotes: Free, open-source macOS app that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings locally using your own OpenAI API key. Shadow: A bot-free, Mac-based AI meeting assistant that transcribes and summarizes calls locally without joining as a participant. They overlap on ai-meeting-assistants, so the right pick depends on team size, budget, and which meeting workflows you automate.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
For ai-meeting-assistants workflows, shortlist Meetingnotes when privacy-focused engineers recording and summarizing local meetings matters most, and Shadow when capturing notes and summaries across multiple conferencing platforms without a bot joining matters most. Both record across Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams; trial each on real meetings before committing.
Free, open-source macOS app that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings locally using your own OpenAI API key.
A bot-free, Mac-based AI meeting assistant that transcribes and summarizes calls locally without joining as a participant.
Meetingnotes is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Shadow is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Meetingnotes | Shadow |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Records both microphone and system audio for meeting capture | Bot-free capture that records system audio without joining the meeting as a participant |
| Standout feature | Real-time transcription using the OpenAI API | On-device (local) transcription on macOS |
| Team usage | AI summaries that combine transcripts with manual notes | Speaker identification during transcription |
| Integrations | Customizable system prompts for personalized note-taking | Captures on-screen content in addition to spoken audio |
| Languages & capture | Local storage of notes and transcripts for privacy | Customizable prompts/Skills to generate notes, summaries, and emails |
| Best-fit workflow | Search, copy, and delete management for stored notes | Webhook integration to connect outputs to other tools |
Meetingnotes
Choose Meetingnotes if you need privacy-focused engineers recording and summarizing local meetings — strengths include completely free and open-source with no subscription.
Shadow
Choose Shadow if you need capturing notes and summaries across multiple conferencing platforms without a bot joining — strengths include does not add a visible bot to meetings.
Meetingnotes
Shadow
It depends on your workflow. Meetingnotes is strong for privacy-focused engineers recording and summarizing local meetings, while Shadow is strong for capturing notes and summaries across multiple conferencing platforms without a bot joining. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Meetingnotes is a free tier with paid upgrades and Shadow 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 and the budget is justified.