Otter.ai vs Fireflies.ai
A feature-by-feature comparison of Otter.ai and Fireflies.ai across 7 capability categories.
Modalities — Tie
| Feature | Otter.ai | Fireflies.ai |
|---|---|---|
Text Input | Yes, requires free plan. Otter Chat and the transcript editor take typed questions over meeting notes. | Yes, requires free plan. AskFred answers questions over your meeting library in the web app. |
Image Upload / Vision | No. Meeting transcription, not a vision model. | No. Meeting recorder, not a vision model. |
Image Generation | No. Does not generate images. | No. Does not generate images. |
Voice Mode | Partial. Live captions and spoken meetings. It is not a two-way voice assistant like ChatGPT Voice. | Partial. Captures spoken meetings. Not a two-way voice assistant. |
Video Understanding | No. Joins Zoom/Meet/Teams for audio. It does not watch the video track as a vision model. | No. Records call audio. It does not watch the video as a vision model. |
Video Generation | No. Not a video generation product. | No. Not a video generation product. |
File Upload (PDF, DOCX) | Partial. You can import audio/video of meetings. Not a general PDF knowledge base. | Partial. Upload recordings. Not a general PDF chat product. |
Code Execution | No. Not a code sandbox. | No. Not a code sandbox. |
Audio Input | Yes, requires free plan. Core product: live and recorded meeting transcription. Basic includes 300 minutes/month. | Yes, requires free plan. Records Zoom, Meet, Teams and more. Free plan exists; Pro/Business add minutes and integrations. |
Canvas / Artifact Editor | No. Transcript editor, not a canvas/artifacts UI. | No. Transcript UI, not a canvas. |
Screen Sharing / Computer Use | No. No computer-use takeover. | No. No computer-use takeover. |
Memory & Context — Tie
| Feature | Otter.ai | Fireflies.ai |
|---|---|---|
Persistent Memory | Partial. Otter Chat over your meeting library. That is search over transcripts, not a personal-facts memory profile. | Partial. AskFred searches past meetings. Not a personal-facts memory profile. |
Large Context Window | No. Not an LLM context-window product. Limits are minutes, not tokens. | No. Limits are storage/minutes, not an LLM token window. |
Custom Instructions | Unknown. Custom vocabulary/vocabulary was not re-checked on the 2026 pricing page. | Unknown. Custom vocabulary was not re-checked on the pricing table. |
Conversation History | Yes, requires free plan. Meetings and chats are saved in your Otter account. | Yes, requires free plan. Meetings and AskFred threads persist in the account. |
Integrations — Fireflies.ai Wins
| Feature | Otter.ai | Fireflies.ai |
|---|---|---|
Web Search / Browsing | No. Searches your meetings, not the live web. | No. Searches your conversations, not the live web. |
Plugins / Extensions | Partial. Zoom/Meet/Teams plus Zapier and an MCP server. Not a GPT-style plugin store. | Yes, requires pro plan. Integrations (CRM, etc.) on paid; Zapier listed. Not a GPT plugin store. |
API Access | Unknown. An Otter developer API was not confirmed on the pricing page this round. | Yes, requires pro plan. API is listed on Business in the public pricing comparison. |
Zapier Integration | Yes, requires plus plan. Zapier is listed on paid/Basic materials as a meeting-notes automation path. | Yes, requires pro plan. Zapier is listed among Fireflies integrations. |
Custom GPTs / Bots | No. No custom-GPT store. | No. No custom-GPT store. |
Real-time Collaboration | Partial. Shared meetings and live notes. Not a multiplayer AI document. | Partial. Shared meeting workspace. Not a multiplayer AI doc. |
Live Social Data Integration | No. No live social firehose. | No. No live social firehose. |
Live Citation Mapping | No. Citations are to your meeting, not the academic web. | No. Citations are to your meetings. |
Developer — Tie
| Feature | Otter.ai | Fireflies.ai |
|---|---|---|
Function Calling | Partial. MCP server is listed. That is tool access for assistants, not a public function-calling chat API. | Unknown. AskFred is Q&A. A developer function-calling API was not separately confirmed. |
Streaming Responses | Yes, requires free plan. Live captions stream as people talk. | Yes, requires free plan. Live notes during the call. |
Fine-Tuning | No. You do not train Otter’s speech model. | No. You do not train Fireflies’ models. |
Embeddings API | No. Not an embeddings API. | No. Not an embeddings API product. |
Structured Output (JSON) | Partial. Summaries, action items, and speakers. Not arbitrary JSON schema. | Partial. Summaries, action items, conversation intelligence. Not arbitrary JSON schema. |
Reasoning / Thinking Mode | No. Not an LLM reasoning-mode product. | No. AskFred is retrieval over meetings, not a Deep Think mode. |
Local Execution | No. Cloud SaaS. Desktop recorder still sends audio to Otter. | No. Cloud SaaS. |
Open Weights | No. Closed speech models. | No. Closed models. |
Multi-Agent Orchestration | No. Not an orchestrator. | No. Not an orchestrator. |
Platforms — Tie
| Feature | Otter.ai | Fireflies.ai |
|---|---|---|
Web App | Yes, requires free plan. otter.ai web app for notes and Otter Chat. | Yes, requires free plan. fireflies.ai web app. |
iOS App | Yes, requires free plan. Official iOS app. | Yes, requires free plan. iOS app is listed. |
Android App | Yes, requires free plan. Official Android app. | Yes, requires free plan. Android app is listed. |
Desktop App | Yes, requires free plan. Bot-free desktop recorder is advertised. | Yes, requires free plan. Desktop app is listed alongside the Chrome extension. |
Chrome Extension | Yes, requires free plan. Chrome capture extension. | Yes, requires free plan. Chrome extension for bot-free capture. |
Privacy — Fireflies.ai Wins
| Feature | Otter.ai | Fireflies.ai |
|---|---|---|
GDPR Compliant | Unknown. Needs a current DPA read. Not asserted from the marketing homepage. | Yes, requires free plan. Pricing page lists GDPR (and SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA). |
Opt Out of Data Training | Unknown. Training-use toggle was not checked on a privacy policy this round. | Yes, requires free plan. Pricing page: they do not train on your data. |
Enterprise Privacy Mode | Yes, requires enterprise plan. Enterprise adds SSO, SCIM, and a HIPAA add-on on the pricing page. | Yes, requires enterprise plan. SSO, SOC 2, HIPAA listed. Seat dollars were not extracted from the public table. |
Workspaces — Tie
| Feature | Otter.ai | Fireflies.ai |
|---|---|---|
Projects / Folders | Partial. Meetings can be organized; workspace folders on paid were not fully mapped. | Unknown. Overlapping columns disagreed (partial vs yes); left unverified rather than copying a no. |