Meeting notes and dictation apps compared: Aside, Granola, Otter, Fathom, Fireflies, Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, Notion AI and the open source ones.
Granola caps the history, Otter the minutes, Fathom the summaries, Wispr Flow the meetings per week, and Notion puts the whole feature behind its Business plan. We checked every number here on the vendor’s own pricing page before pricing Aside.
| Tool | Free limit | Cheapest paid | Own model / key | Where notes live | Platform |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Aside
|
Limit. 10 meeting trial | Plus. $8 / mo, or $79 once | Plus. Yes. Free from us, your provider bills you, or Ollama for free | Plus. Markdown in your own folder | Limit. macOS only |
| Granola | Neither. Unlimited notes, 30 day history | Limit. $14 / user / mo | Limit. No | Limit. Granola’s cloud | Plus. macOS, Windows, iOS, Android |
| Otter | Neither. 300 min / month, 3 imports lifetime | Limit. $16.99 / mo, $8.33 billed yearly | Limit. No | Limit. Otter’s cloud | Plus. Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android |
| Fathom | Plus. Unlimited recording, 5 AI summaries / month | Limit. $20 / user / mo, $16 billed yearly | Limit. No | Limit. Fathom’s cloud | Plus. Web and a Mac app |
| Wispr Flow | Neither. Notetaker on the free plan, weekly meeting limit | Limit. $15 / user / mo, $12 billed yearly | Limit. No | Limit. Wispr Flow’s app | Limit. Notetaker is macOS only |
| Notion AI | Limit. A limited trial of meeting notes on Free and Plus | Limit. $24 / member / mo on Business, $20 billed yearly | Limit. No | Limit. A page in your Notion workspace | Plus. Mac, Windows, browser, mobile |
One page each.
Aside vs Granola
The closest comparison, and the one that made us build this. The advanced models, and every note older than thirty days, sit behind the $14 plan.
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Aside vs Otter
Otter meters you by the minute, and its policy lets it train its models on what you record. 300 free minutes is about five one-hour meetings.
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Aside vs Fathom
The most generous free plan on this page. The cap is on the summaries: five advanced ones a month, then their general template.
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Aside vs Wispr Flow
The newest one here, and it records the way we do. Their Notetaker is on the free plan, and their pages do not say where the speech becomes text.
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Aside vs Superwhisper
Both of us do dictation and meetings. What differs is the languages, what happens to the text on its way back, and where a meeting note ends up.
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Aside vs Notion AI
The note lands next to the project, which no folder of files can do. It also takes the Business plan, and it stops working offline.
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Aside vs Fireflies
The bot-based one. Fireflies joins the call as a participant, which is what lets it record a meeting you skip and why everyone sees an extra attendee.
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Open source, compared
Muesli, Meetily and Anarlog. All three are free and good, and all three ask you for the setup, a key and the upkeep in return.
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Only Aside writes the original note straight into your folder.
With the others the source of truth starts in their app: Granola, Otter, Fathom and Wispr Flow keep your notes inside their own product, and Notion will hand you Markdown, but only once you go and export it. Aside writes every meeting as a Markdown file into the folder you picked at setup. That file goes into Git or Obsidian, and it still opens with Aside deleted.
Rent Aside for $8 a month or own it for $79 once. You get the same files either way.
The pricing page shows exactly where each dollar goes.