OpenOats and Shadow are both AI meeting assistants for recording, transcription, and summaries, compared here on pricing, features, and workflow fit. OpenOats: Open-source macOS meeting note-taker that transcribes calls locally and surfaces relevant talking points from your own notes in real time. 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 OpenOats when getting live, context-aware prompts from your own notes during sales or customer calls 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.
Open-source macOS meeting note-taker that transcribes calls locally and surfaces relevant talking points from your own notes in real time.
A bot-free, Mac-based AI meeting assistant that transcribes and summarizes calls locally without joining as a participant.
OpenOats 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 | OpenOats | Shadow |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Real-time local transcription of both sides of a conversation on Apple Silicon | Bot-free capture that records system audio without joining the meeting as a participant |
| Standout feature | Live retrieval of relevant talking points from your own notes during meetings | On-device (local) transcription on macOS |
| Team usage | Window hidden from screen sharing by default for privacy on calls | Speaker identification during transcription |
| Integrations | Auto-saved transcripts and session logs to local files | Captures on-screen content in addition to spoken audio |
| Languages & capture | Works fully local via Ollama or with cloud models (OpenRouter, Voyage AI) | Customizable prompts/Skills to generate notes, summaries, and emails |
| Best-fit workflow | MIT-licensed, self-hostable Swift application | Webhook integration to connect outputs to other tools |
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.
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.
OpenOats
Shadow
It depends on your workflow. OpenOats is strong for getting live, context-aware prompts from your own notes during sales or customer calls, while Shadow is strong for capturing notes and summaries across multiple conferencing platforms without a bot joining. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
OpenOats 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.