Otter.ai vs Fireflies.ai 2026: Meeting Transcription Comparison

Otter.ai and Fireflies.ai both transcribe and summarize meetings, but they optimize for different workflows. Otter focuses on real-time collaboration during meetings. Fireflies emphasizes post-meeting intelligence and CRM integration. This comparison helps you choose the right tool for your meeting workflow.

Otter.ai vs Fireflies.ai: Quick Comparison

Feature	Otter.ai	Fireflies.ai
Best For	Real-time collaboration, students	Sales teams, CRM integration
Starting Price	Free / $16.99/month Pro	Free / $18/month Pro
Transcription Accuracy	~90-95%	~90-95%
Real-time Transcription	Yes (live during meetings)	Yes
AI Summary	OtterPilot summaries	Super Summaries
Speaker Identification	Yes (auto-detect)	Yes (auto-detect)
Zoom Integration	Yes	Yes
Google Meet	Yes	Yes
Microsoft Teams	Yes	Yes
CRM Integration	Limited	Salesforce, HubSpot, native
Custom Vocabulary	Yes	Yes
Search	Full-text + AI chat	Full-text + smart search

Transcription Quality

Otter.ai Transcription

Otter achieves 90-95% accuracy in clear audio conditions with native English speakers. It handles multiple speakers well, automatically identifying and labeling different voices. Custom vocabulary training improves accuracy for industry-specific terms.

Otter’s standout feature is real-time transcription displayed during the meeting. Participants can highlight key points, add comments, and assign action items as the conversation happens.

Fireflies.ai Transcription

Fireflies matches Otter’s accuracy range at 90-95% for clear English audio. It processes recordings slightly faster post-meeting and handles accented English well. The transcription includes timestamps, speaker labels, and topic segmentation.

Fireflies’ AI also extracts sentiment analysis from conversations, identifying positive, negative, and neutral segments — useful for sales call review and customer success teams.

AI Summary and Intelligence

Otter OtterPilot

OtterPilot automatically joins your scheduled meetings, records, transcribes, and generates summaries with action items. Summaries include key discussions, decisions made, and assigned tasks. The AI Chat feature lets you ask questions about any past meeting.

Fireflies Super Summaries

Fireflies’ Super Summaries provide structured meeting overviews: overview, action items, key questions asked, next steps, and topic-by-topic breakdowns. The summaries are more granular than Otter’s, making them better for detailed meeting documentation.

Fireflies also offers AI-powered conversation intelligence: talk-time analysis per speaker, question frequency, sentiment tracking, and meeting engagement metrics.

Integration Ecosystem

Otter Integrations

Otter integrates with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Dropbox. It provides a Chrome extension for capturing web-based audio. For CRM and project management integrations, Otter relies on Zapier connections.

Fireflies Integrations

Fireflies offers native integrations with 40+ tools including Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, Asana, Trello, Monday.com, Notion, and more. The CRM integrations automatically log meeting notes and action items to contact records — a significant advantage for sales teams.

Fireflies also provides an API for custom integrations and workflow automation.

Pricing Breakdown

Otter.ai Pricing (2026)

• Free: 300 minutes/month, 30 minutes per conversation
• Pro: $16.99/month — 1,200 minutes/month, 90-minute conversations
• Business: $30/user/month — 6,000 minutes, admin controls, OtterPilot
• Enterprise: Custom pricing — unlimited minutes, SSO, advanced security

Fireflies.ai Pricing (2026)

• Free: 800 minutes storage, limited AI summaries
• Pro: $18/month — 8,000 minutes, unlimited AI summaries, CRM integrations
• Business: $29/month — unlimited storage, conversation intelligence, API
• Enterprise: Custom pricing — SSO, custom data retention, priority support

Use Case Recommendations

For Sales Teams

Fireflies wins. Native CRM integrations, sentiment analysis, talk-time tracking, and deal intelligence features make Fireflies purpose-built for sales workflows. Meeting notes flow directly into Salesforce or HubSpot contact records.

For Students and Educators

Otter wins. Real-time transcription during lectures, collaborative notes, and the free plan’s generous limits make Otter ideal for academic use. Students can follow along, highlight key concepts, and review later.

For General Business Meetings

Both are strong. For teams without specific CRM needs, Otter’s simpler interface and collaborative features may be easier to adopt. For teams that need detailed post-meeting analytics and automation, Fireflies provides more intelligence.

For Multilingual Teams

Fireflies edges ahead. It supports more languages for transcription and translation compared to Otter’s primarily English-focused optimization.

Verdict

Choose Otter.ai if: You value real-time collaboration during meetings, want an intuitive interface, or need a strong free plan. Otter is ideal for individuals, students, and teams that want simple, reliable transcription without complex integrations.

Choose Fireflies.ai if: You need CRM integration, conversation analytics, or advanced post-meeting intelligence. Fireflies is the clear choice for sales teams, customer success managers, and organizations that want to extract actionable insights from every meeting.

Both tools significantly reduce time spent on meeting notes. The choice comes down to whether you need real-time collaboration (Otter) or post-meeting intelligence and automation (Fireflies).

See also: best AI writing tools and ChatGPT vs Claude.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do these tools record video or just audio?

Both primarily process audio for transcription. Otter can record video through its mobile app. Fireflies records audio and can capture video through meeting platform integrations. Neither replaces dedicated video recording tools.

How accurate are AI meeting summaries?

Both tools produce summaries that capture 80-90% of key discussion points and action items. Complex technical discussions or heavily accented speech may result in less accurate summaries. Always review AI summaries before sharing them as official meeting minutes.

Can these tools transcribe pre-recorded audio?

Yes. Both tools accept uploaded audio and video files for transcription. Otter supports MP3, WAV, and M4A. Fireflies supports MP3, M4A, WAV, MP4, and more.

Are conversations stored securely?

Both tools offer encryption at rest and in transit. Enterprise plans include SOC 2 compliance, SSO, and custom data retention policies. For highly sensitive meetings (legal, medical, financial), review each tool’s security documentation and consider on-premise alternatives.