Screenpipe vs Otter.ai — Which One Should You Use?

Otter.ai is one of the most popular AI meeting tools. It joins your Zoom, Meet, or Teams call, transcribes everything, and gives you a searchable summary with action items.

Screenpipe does something different. It captures your entire screen and audio 24/7 — meetings included, but also everything else.

Here's the honest comparison.

The Quick Version

	Screenpipe	Otter.ai
What it captures	Screen text + all audio 24/7	Meeting audio only
Screen recording	✅ All monitors, all apps	❌ None
Audio	System + mic, unlimited	Meeting audio, 6000 min/mo cap
Data storage	100% local on your device	Cloud (Otter's servers)
License	✅ Source-available (Screenpipe Commercial License)	❌
Works offline	✅	❌
AI model	Any (Claude, GPT, Ollama, Apple Intelligence)	Otter's built-in AI only
Developer API	Full REST API + MCP server	Limited, paid plans only
Platforms	Mac, Windows, Linux	Web, Desktop, iOS, Android
Price	$25/mo (Basic), free tier available	$19.99/mo per user (Business)

What Otter.ai Does Well

Give credit where it's due. Otter is polished:

• Real-time transcription with speaker identification during calls
• AI summaries and action items generated automatically after each meeting
• Integrations — connects to Zoom, Meet, Teams natively
• Mobile apps — iOS and Android for recording in-person meetings
• Specialized agents — built-in workflows for sales, recruiting, education

If meetings are your entire workflow, Otter handles them well.

Where Otter Falls Short

It Only Captures Meetings

This is the fundamental limitation. Otter joins calls and transcribes them. That's it. Everything else in your workday is invisible:

• The research you did before the meeting — gone
• The Slack thread with the key decision — not captured
• The URL dropped in the Zoom chat — missed entirely
• The spreadsheet someone shared on screen — audio-only, so Otter got "look at the Q3 numbers" without the actual numbers
• The follow-up email you wrote — not captured

Meetings are maybe 10-20% of a knowledge worker's day. Otter ignores the other 80-90%.

Cloud-Only Processing

Every transcript, every recording, every word said in your meetings lives on Otter's servers. For routine standups, that's probably fine. For conversations about:

• Acquisition targets
• Salary negotiations
• Legal strategy
• Patient information (HIPAA)
• Classified material

...sending that to a third-party server is a real problem. Otter's privacy policy exists, but you can't audit their code.

Per-User Pricing Adds Up

Otter Business costs $19.99 per user per month. A 10-person team pays $200/month or $2,400/year. That's just for meeting transcription — no screen capture, no always-on recording.

What Screenpipe Does Differently

Screenpipe captures your entire screen and audio continuously. Meetings are included automatically — no bot joining your call, no "Otter.ai wants to join the meeting" notification.

After a meeting, you get:

• Full audio transcript (system audio + mic)
• Everything shown on screen — slides, docs, chat messages, URLs
• Searchable by keyword, time range, or natural language AI query

Between meetings, you also get:

• Every app, every tab, every window — text extracted via accessibility APIs (with OCR as a fallback)
• Slack messages, code reviews, browser content, emails
• All searchable, all local

The difference isn't incremental — it's a different category of tool.

Privacy

Screenpipe processes everything on your device. The code is source-available on GitHub under the Screenpipe Commercial License. Your security team can audit every line before deploying. Data never touches a cloud server.

Cost

Screenpipe starts at $25/month, or $250/year on Basic, with a free tier to try it first. Otter Business is $19.99 per user per month, about $240/year. The two are close enough that price should not decide this one. What differs is what the money covers: meeting transcripts on Otter, or continuous screen and audio capture with local search and an API on screenpipe.

When to Use Which

Choose Otter.ai if:

• Meetings are your primary workflow
• You need polished, shareable transcripts with team collaboration
• CRM integration matters (HubSpot/Salesforce via their workflows)
• You want mobile recording for in-person meetings

Choose Screenpipe if:

• You want to capture more than just meetings
• Privacy and local processing matter to you
• You're in a regulated industry (healthcare, legal, finance)
• You want developer API access to build on top of your data
• You want capture data to stay on your own machine by default

For a deeper technical comparison, see the full Screenpipe vs Otter.ai breakdown. For more on the meeting features specifically, check the AI meeting notes use case. You might also want to see how Screenpipe compares to Fathom or Fireflies.ai, two other popular meeting transcription tools. For a broader comparison of all AI meeting assistants, see AI meeting assistant in 2026.

Try Screenpipe →