VidNotes: VidNotes is an AI tool that transcribes videos, meeting recordings, and lectures, then generates summaries, key points, flashcards, and a chat interface in 30+ languages. aTrain: Open-source offline transcription tool from the University of Graz that turns recorded meetings and interviews into text using Whisper and speaker detection. Below, they line up on price, capture method, and how each fits a real meeting stack.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist VidNotes when students turning recorded lectures into summaries and flashcards for study matters most, and aTrain when universities and public bodies needing gdpr-friendly local transcription matters most. Run both through a week of actual calls to see which suits your workflow.
VidNotes is an AI tool that transcribes videos, meeting recordings, and lectures, then generates summaries, key points, flashcards, and a chat interface in 30+ languages.
Open-source offline transcription tool from the University of Graz that turns recorded meetings and interviews into text using Whisper and speaker detection.
VidNotes is an AI-powered transcription and note-taking tool that turns videos, lectures, podcasts, and meeting recordings into structured, searchable text. Users either upload a local file (MP4, MOV, MKV, and more) or paste a link from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, or Vimeo, including exported recordings from Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and webinars. Under the hood it runs the audio through OpenAI's Whisper model for speech-to-text, then a large language model produces a summary, key points, timestamped notes, auto-generated flashcards, and extracted action items in the same language as the source. A chat feature lets users ask questions about the content and receive answers with citations, and transcripts and notes can be exported as TXT, PDF, Markdown, or SRT captions. It supports English plus 30+ additional languages and handles mixed languages and varied accents. Aimed at students, researchers, content creators, and professionals, VidNotes is available in the browser, as a Chrome extension, and as iOS and Android apps. The app is published by Silpho LLC.
Best suited for
aTrain is a free, open-source desktop application for offline speech transcription, developed by researchers at the Business Analytics and Data Science Center of the University of Graz in Austria. It provides a graphical interface around OpenAI's Whisper model (via the faster-whisper implementation) so users with no programming experience can transcribe recorded meetings, interviews, lectures, and other audio. Because all processing happens locally on the user's own computer, no audio or text is uploaded to any server, which makes it well suited to privacy-sensitive and GDPR-conscious environments such as universities, public institutions, and research teams. aTrain supports a wide range of languages and adds speaker detection through pyannote.audio so contributions from different participants can be separated. Transcripts can be exported in formats compatible with qualitative-analysis software such as MAXQDA, ATLAS.ti, and NVivo. It runs on Windows (including a Microsoft Store distribution) with GPU acceleration on NVIDIA hardware, and is distributed under the AGPL-3.0 license. It is best for researchers, academics, and organizations that need accurate, local, no-cloud transcription of recorded conversations. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
VidNotes 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 | VidNotes | aTrain |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Speech-to-text transcription via OpenAI's Whisper, with timestamps | Offline, fully local transcription with no data leaving the device |
| Standout feature | AI summaries, key points, and extracted action items from meetings and videos | Built on OpenAI Whisper via the faster-whisper engine |
| Team usage | Auto-generated flashcards with spaced-repetition review | Speaker detection/diarization using pyannote.audio |
| Integrations | Chat interface that answers questions about a video with citations | Exports compatible with MAXQDA, ATLAS.ti, and NVivo |
| Languages & capture | Supports file uploads plus YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Vimeo, and meeting recordings (Zoom, Google Meet, Teams) | Graphical interface requiring no programming skills |
| Best-fit workflow | Export to TXT, PDF, Markdown, and SRT captions across web, Chrome extension, iOS, and Android | NVIDIA GPU acceleration support |
VidNotes
Choose VidNotes if you need students turning recorded lectures into summaries and flashcards for study — strengths include works across web, chrome extension, ios, and android, with no download required for browser use.
aTrain
Choose aTrain if you need researchers transcribing recorded interviews for qualitative analysis — strengths include free and open source under agpl-3.0.
VidNotes
aTrain
It depends on your workflow. VidNotes is strong for students turning recorded lectures into summaries and flashcards for study, while aTrain is strong for researchers transcribing recorded interviews for qualitative analysis. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
VidNotes 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.
Sure. Running both makes sense when their strengths don't overlap and the budget allows.
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