LokalBot
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Otter is one of the best-known AI notetakers: its assistant joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet, transcribes in the cloud, and shares notes with your team. That reach comes with a participant in your call and your conversations on Otter's servers. LokalBot takes the opposite approach: it captures the call from your Mac's own audio, transcribes and summarizes on the Mac, and needs no account.
Last verified · spot something outdated? Open an issue.
Side by side
| Feature | LokalBot | Otter.ai |
|---|---|---|
| How it captures a meeting | Microphone + selected-app system audio on your Mac; source labels do not identify speakers | The Otter assistant joins Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet; its apps can also record directly |
| Where transcription runs | On your Mac — Qwen3-ASR by default, with Parakeet, Granite Speech, and Whisper as alternatives | Otter's cloud |
| Account required | None | Yes |
| Works offline | After a one-time model download | Needs a connection |
| Transcription languages | 52 languages and dialects with the default model; 99 with Whisper | English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese |
| Free plan limits | None — the whole app is free | 300 transcription minutes per month |
| Team features | Single-user; share by exporting Markdown | Shared notes, team workspaces, and integrations |
| Connect AI tools | Read-only CLI and MCP server, off until you enable Agent Access | Otter MCP server |
| System-wide dictation | Hold ⌥ Space in any app | No |
| Day timeline | App and window activity by default; screen text and encrypted screenshots are opt-in and deleted after 14 days | No |
| Source code | Open source, GPLv3 | Proprietary |
| Price | Free | Basic free · Pro $16.99/mo, or $8.33/mo billed annually · Business $30/mo, or $19.99/mo billed annually · Enterprise custom |
| Platforms | macOS 15+ on Apple Silicon | Web, Mac and Windows apps, iOS, Android, and a Chrome extension |
Verdict
The cloud notetaker most teams already know.
For conversations that shouldn't live on someone else's server.
Questions
No. Nothing joins the call and nothing appears in the participant list. LokalBot records your microphone and your Mac's system audio, so it works with Zoom, Teams, Meet, Slack huddles, or any app that plays sound. You're still responsible for telling participants you're recording.
For most meetings, yes — but test it on your own audio. LokalBot defaults to Qwen3-ASR and lets you switch to Parakeet, Granite Speech, or Whisper in Settings. The benchmarks page shows speed and error rates for the models the project has tested.
There is no tier. LokalBot is free and open source under GPLv3, with no minute caps, no account, and no subscription.
Download
Free and open source. Models download on first use; built-in inference then works offline.
Download for macOS.dmg installer · brew install --cask stevyhacker/tap/lokalbot · all releases and notes
Otter and Otter.ai are trademarks of their owner; LokalBot is not affiliated with or endorsed by it. Details are based on public pages and pricing as of September 2026 and may change — if something here is wrong or out of date, open an issue and we'll fix it.