Shadow and aTrain are both AI meeting assistants for recording, transcription, and summaries, compared here on pricing, features, and workflow fit. Shadow: A bot-free, Mac-based AI meeting assistant that transcribes and summarizes calls locally without joining as a participant. aTrain: Open-source offline transcription tool from the University of Graz that turns recorded meetings and interviews into text using Whisper and speaker detection. 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 Shadow when capturing notes and summaries across multiple conferencing platforms without a bot joining matters most, and aTrain when researchers transcribing recorded interviews for qualitative analysis matters most. Both record across Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams; trial each on real meetings before committing.
A bot-free, Mac-based AI meeting assistant that transcribes and summarizes calls locally without joining as a participant.
Open-source offline transcription tool from the University of Graz that turns recorded meetings and interviews into text using Whisper and speaker detection.
Shadow is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); aTrain is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Shadow | aTrain |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Bot-free capture that records system audio without joining the meeting as a participant | Offline, fully local transcription with no data leaving the device |
| Standout feature | On-device (local) transcription on macOS | Built on OpenAI Whisper via the faster-whisper engine |
| Team usage | Speaker identification during transcription | Speaker detection/diarization using pyannote.audio |
| Integrations | Captures on-screen content in addition to spoken audio | Exports compatible with MAXQDA, ATLAS.ti, and NVivo |
| Languages & capture | Customizable prompts/Skills to generate notes, summaries, and emails | Graphical interface requiring no programming skills |
| Best-fit workflow | Webhook integration to connect outputs to other tools | NVIDIA GPU acceleration support |
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.
aTrain
Choose aTrain if you need researchers transcribing recorded interviews for qualitative analysis — strengths include free and open source under agpl-3.0.
Shadow
aTrain
It depends on your workflow. Shadow is strong for capturing notes and summaries across multiple conferencing platforms without a bot joining, while aTrain is strong for researchers transcribing recorded interviews for qualitative analysis. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Shadow is a free tier with paid upgrades and aTrain 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.