Otter is one of the best-known meeting notetakers. It’s built around the cloud and the team; Oatmeal is built around your Mac and you.
Otter: live, online, connected
Otter can send a notetaker into Zoom, Teams and Meet, shows a live transcript and captions, names speakers and works in six languages. Your notes live in your Otter account, available on the web, on phones and on desktop, and paid plans connect to tools like Salesforce and HubSpot.
Oatmeal: private, afterwards, on your Mac
Oatmeal records your microphone and your Mac’s audio without joining the call. When the meeting ends it writes the transcript and summary on your Mac, with models you add yourself. There’s no account and nothing is uploaded. It’s English only, labels sound as Me and System audio rather than naming people, and runs only on Apple silicon Macs.
The short version
If you want live captions, speaker names and team sharing, Otter is the fuller service. If you want your meetings recorded and summarised without leaving your Mac, choose Oatmeal.