Fireflies.ai vs Otter.ai

When to pick Fireflies.ai

• You want automation and programmatic access without paying up — Fireflies includes API access on every plan, even the free one, plus 200+ integrations covering Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, and dialers.
• You hold long or frequent meetings — Pro gives 8,000 minutes of storage per seat and Business removes the storage cap entirely, versus Otter’s 1,200 minutes a month on Pro.
• You run a sales or revenue team that needs conversation intelligence — talk-time analytics, sentiment, topic trackers, and Live Assist coaching turn transcripts into actionable data.

When to pick Otter.ai

• You want the lower price and a cleaner recording experience — Otter Pro is $8.33/user/month (annual) versus Fireflies’ $10, and its desktop app records Mac and Windows meetings without a bot joining the call.
• You transcribe lectures, interviews, or podcasts solo — the free 300 minutes a month plus timestamped, speaker-labeled transcripts suit students, journalists, and researchers.
• You prefer a simpler, note-taking-first workflow over a heavy conversation-intelligence stack and don’t need API access below the Enterprise tier.

Bottom line

Both tools transcribe and summarize meetings across Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams, sync to Salesforce and HubSpot, and expose an MCP server so Claude and ChatGPT can query transcripts. Fireflies.ai is the better default for teams that automate: API access on every plan, 200+ integrations, 8,000 minutes per seat on Pro, and a deeper conversation-intelligence layer for sales coaching. Otter.ai wins on entry price ($8.33/user/month) and on bot-free desktop recording, making it the cleaner pick for individuals — students, journalists, podcasters — and small teams that want searchable notes without a bot in every call. Choose Fireflies for automation and scale; choose Otter for price and a lighter footprint.