Skip to main content
There are a lot of “AI notetakers” and they mostly blur together. The useful way to tell them apart is three questions: Does it help you during the call, or only write it up after? Does a bot join the meeting? And where does your data live? Raven is the odd one out because it combines all four: it’s open source, runs local-first (recordings stay in a database on your machine), does live in-call assist, and is free (you bring your own API keys). Live assist itself is no longer unique - Fireflies and Otter added it in 2026 - but no other tool here is free, local, bot-free, and open source at the same time. Below is the honest field, including where other tools genuinely win.
We make one of these tools, so treat this as a competitor’s ranking and verify anything that matters. Prices verified August 2026; every vendor changes pricing - check their page before you buy.

​
The field at a glance

​
How to choose

  • You want help during the call (“what should I say?”): Raven or Cluely are built around it; Fireflies (metered by AI credits) and Otter (Enterprise) added live assist in 2026 too. Raven includes screen-share stealth free and stays local; Cluely gates invisibility behind its $149.99/mo tier, and Fireflies/Otter run in their cloud. See Raven vs Cluely.
  • You just want a clean recap and love bot-free: Granola or Raven. Granola’s notes UX is excellent, but the free plan only shows your last 30 days and there’s no live help. See Raven vs Granola.
  • You want the most generous free recap: Fathom - but the free plan caps advanced AI summaries at 5 calls/month. See Raven vs Fathom.
  • You mostly need cheap transcription: Otter or Fireflies - watch the 300-min/mo (Otter) and storage/AI-credit caps. See Raven vs Otter and Raven vs Fireflies.
  • You’re a sales manager coaching reps: tl;dv or Circleback shine at scorecards and automations (and cost the most). See Raven vs tl;dv and Raven vs Circleback.
  • Your #1 problem is background noise: Krisp leads on noise cancellation, with notes as a bonus. See Raven vs Krisp.
  • You need contractual EU data residency / GDPR paperwork: Jamie is built for that - or Raven’s fully-local model if you’d rather the data never leave your machine. See Raven vs Jamie.

​
What the others do better (honestly)

  • Cluely: a polished mobile app and one bundled subscription.
  • Fathom: calendar auto-join, CRM sync, clips/playlists, mature team features.
  • Granola: arguably the nicest notes UX in the category, plus deep integrations/MCP.
  • Otter / Fireflies: big brands, mobile apps, broad integrations, large cloud archives - and both now offer real-time live assist (Otter on Enterprise; Fireflies metered by credits).
  • tl;dv / Circleback: real sales coaching (MEDDIC/BANT/SPIN) and post-call automations.
  • Krisp: best-in-class noise cancellation.
If your job is a RevOps workflow or a coached sales floor, those paid tools earn their price.

​
Where Raven wins

  • Live + after-call in one tool - most of this list only does the after-call half.
  • Free and open source - no per-seat fee; audit exactly what leaves your machine.
  • Local-first - transcripts, notes, and the Ask index live in SQLite on your device, not a vendor cloud.
  • BYOK - you pay Deepgram/AssemblyAI and Anthropic/OpenAI directly for usage (typically a few dollars a month, scaling with how much you record and which model you pick), instead of $8-$150/seat.
  • No bot - nothing joins the call; capture is local on macOS and Windows.

​
More head-to-heads

Want the specifics? See the full feature comparison matrix - capture, privacy, transcription/AI, integrations, and price across all ten tools. Full side-by-side pages: Cluely · Fathom · Granola · Otter · Fireflies · tl;dv · Krisp · Jamie · Circleback · Read.ai · Fellow · Bluedot · Avoma · Sembly · Tactiq · SalesEQ · Gong · Platform built-ins

​
Try Raven

Download Raven

Free, open source, Mac + Windows. Bring your own keys.

See how it compares

Side-by-side pages vs Cluely, Fathom, Granola, and Otter.
Pricing verified August 2026 against each vendor’s official pricing page. Most figures are the per-seat rate when billed annually (cheaper than month-to-month); Cluely and Jamie are shown at their standard monthly rate. Vendors change pricing often - confirm before relying on a number.