Meeting transcription without a bot, and without the upload
"No bot in your call" used to be the whole argument, and it has stopped being one: several of the tools below now record from your device's own audio without sending an attendee into the meeting, and they are better for it. What none of them changed is what happens next. The conversation is uploaded to be transcribed, to the vendor or to the speech company the vendor buys recognition from; or, where the recognition does run on your device, the transcript and the recording are kept in a library on the vendor's servers. The bot was never the part that mattered most; the upload was.
Deixis records your microphone and the system output together, both halves of the call, and transcribes them on the machine in front of you as they run, on Windows and on Android; it does not record meetings on the Mac or the iPhone yet. Nothing joins the meeting, and recording and transcribing need no account and no key. The audio is not uploaded either, unless you turn on Deixis cloud processing for a phone's meetings, which is part of Pro and the trial. What you end up with is a folder: the audio, a timestamped transcript, and notes if you have asked for them. Each page below takes the tool's facts from its own pages, dated and linked, including the several things each of them does that Deixis does not.
- Granola puts no bot in the call either, but streams the meeting's audio to cloud transcribers while it runs.
- Fireflies is built around a bot that is always visible in the call, and keeps the recording in its cloud.
- Fathom has a generous free tier, records with a bot on Windows, and stores every call in the United States.
- tl;dv transcribes thirty-plus languages for free, with or without a bot, and uploads every recording to its European servers.
- Krisp transcribes English on your device, then keeps the transcript, the recording and the notes in its cloud; nobody removes background noise better.
- Otter.ai sends a visible notetaker into your calls and uploads what it hears; its page sits with the dictation alternatives.
To record a call for nothing and see exactly where the free part stops, the free meeting recorder is the plain version of this page.
Meetings
One page per tool
The Granola alternative that keeps the audio on your machine
Granola streams your meeting audio to a cloud transcriber. Deixis records the same call and transcribes it on your own machine, with no account.
The Fireflies alternative that keeps the call off the cloud
Fireflies sends a bot into your call and keeps the recording in its cloud. Deixis records the call on your own PC and transcribes it there.
The Fathom alternative where the meeting never leaves the room
Fathom's free tier is generous, but every call lands on its servers. Deixis records and transcribes a meeting on your own machine, with no account.
The tl;dv alternative that keeps the meeting on your PC
tl;dv records your calls to its European cloud and transcribes in 30+ languages. Deixis records mic and system audio to your own disk, on your own CPU.
The Krisp alternative that keeps the transcript on your disk
Krisp transcribes English on your device, then stores the transcript, recording and notes in its cloud. Deixis leaves the whole session in your folder.
Side by side
Every tool here, and Deixis, at a glance
DeixisWindows · Mac · Android · iOS (beta) Speech recognitionOn your device · 7 languages AccountNone for anything local PriceFree · Pro $49/yr
- Runs on
- Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit, on an Intel or AMD processor with AVX2: 2013 and later; no build for Windows on ARM), Mac (Apple Silicon) and Android (a dictation bubble in any app, plus meetings), with an iPhone keyboard in beta on TestFlight and not yet in the App Store. Meetings run on Windows and Android. One engine on all of them, and dictation audio stays on the device, except a first-run dictation you choose to send before its model arrives.
- Speech recognition
- On your own device, inside the app, on every platform, in seven languages on Windows and the Mac: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and Dutch, each measured at fewer than one word in ten wrong. Android and iPhone dictate in English for now. Dictation audio stays on the device, except a first-run dictation you choose to send before its model arrives; a meeting's, only if you turn on cloud processing on Android.
- Leaves your machine
- Text, and only once you switch a cloud feature on, plus, on Windows, one key you press to check your own Claude plan, and, on Android, a meeting's audio if you turn on cloud processing for meetings or send meetings to your own computer, sealed so Deixis cannot read it. Never a dictation's audio, never screenshots, never window titles.
- Account
- None, ever, for anything that runs on your device. The cloud extras have a seven-day trial you start with an email code. No card.
- Price
- Free forever for everything local, meetings included. Pro is $49 a year for the cloud extras with nothing to set up.
GranolaWindows · Mac · iOS · Android Speech recognitionIn the cloud AccountRequired PriceFree plan · $14/mo
- Runs on
- macOS; Windows; iOS; Android
- Leaves your machine
- Audio, text
- Free tier
- Basic: free, with AI meeting notes, AI chat within and across meetings, shared folders, customised templates and multi-language support; the app shows the last 30 days of notes only
- Paid
- $14 a month; per user, for Business, which keeps your whole note history and adds the Attio, Notion, HubSpot, Affinity and Zapier integrations and API access; Enterprise is $35 a user a month and adds single sign-on and admin controls
Granola and Deixis, compared in full Price from granola.ai, checked 7 October 2026
Fireflies.aiWindows · Mac · iOS · Android · Web Speech recognitionIn the cloud AccountRequired PriceFree plan · $18/mo or $120/yr
- Runs on
- Web app; Desktop app for Windows and Mac; iOS and Android apps; Chrome extension; The Fireflies.ai Notetaker bot, in Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Webex
- Leaves your machine
- Audio, video, text
- Free tier
- Free: $0 forever, with limited AI summaries, 400 minutes of stored meetings and 20 AI credits
- Paid
- $18 a month or $120 a year; Per seat. Pro is $18 a month, or $10 a month billed annually; Business is $29, or $19 annually; Enterprise is $39 a seat a month, annual only. Stored meeting time is a total: 400 minutes on Free, 8,000 a seat on Pro, unlimited above that.
Fireflies.ai and Deixis, compared in full Price from fireflies.ai, checked 14 September 2026
FathomWindows · Mac Speech recognitionIn the cloud AccountRequired PriceFree plan · $20/mo or $192/yr
- Runs on
- Desktop app for macOS and Windows; Captures meetings on Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Slack Huddles; Bot-free capture is in beta and on Mac only
- Leaves your machine
- Audio, video, text
- Free tier
- Free: "Unlimited recordings + transcriptions", "Choice of bot-free (in beta) or bot capture", "Instant AI call summaries", "Clips, playlists + search across calls"
- Paid
- $20 a month or $192 a year; Premium is $20 a month, or $16 a month paid annually; Team is $19 a user a month and Business $34, both less when paid annually; Enterprise is priced on request.
Fathom and Deixis, compared in full Price from fathom.ai, checked 14 September 2026
tl;dvWindows · Mac · iOS · Android · Web Speech recognitionIn the cloud AccountRequired PriceFree plan · $29/mo or $216/yr
- Runs on
- Chrome extension; Desktop app (Windows, Mac); Mobile app (iOS, Android); Web
- Leaves your machine
- Audio, video, text
- Free tier
- $0: unlimited video recordings and unlimited transcription in 30+ languages, email and calendar integrations, and the mobile app — with the AI metered at ten meetings with AI notes and ten Ask AI queries. The privacy policy keeps a free user's recordings for three months.
- Paid
- $29 a month or $216 a year; Per seat. Pro is $29 a month, or $18 a month billed annually; Business is $39, or $29 billed annually; Enterprise is priced on request.
tl;dv and Deixis, compared in full Price from tldv.io, checked 14 September 2026
KrispWindows · Mac · iOS · Android · Web Speech recognitionDevice or cloud, your choice AccountRequired PriceFree trial · $16/mo or $96/yr
- Runs on
- Windows desktop app; macOS desktop app; iOS app; Android app; Browser extension
- Leaves your machine
- Audio, text, video
- Free tier
- A 7-day free trial, no credit card, with unlimited transcription, unlimited noise cancellation, unlimited audio and video recording and unlimited AI notes and action items
- Paid
- $16 a month or $96 a year; Meeting AI, per user. Core is $16 a month, or $8 a month paid annually; Advanced is $30, or $15 paid annually, and raises the accent-conversion cap; Enterprise is priced on request. There is no permanently free plan: the $0 column is the seven-day trial.
Krisp and Deixis, compared in full Price from krisp.ai, checked 14 September 2026
Open a row for the rest: the platforms, what leaves your machine and the price in full, from the tool's own pages and dated. Each tool's page here goes further — where it wins, and who should not switch.
What you get
More than dictation. One key, and everything behind it.
Hold the key and press a letter: free mode, a grab, a meeting, a recording, a translation, your own buttons. All of it on your own device, all of it free, none of it behind an account.
Dictation, where your cursor is
Hold a key, speak, release. Clean, punctuated text lands in whatever has focus, on your PC, your Mac and your phone, with your clipboard handed back.
Free mode: talk and point
Narrate for as long as you like while you grab a region, pick a button on screen or take a selection. One note, what you said interleaved with what you pointed at, pasted where you finish and saved as Markdown.
Screen grabs, annotated
Freeze every screen at the keypress, drag a region, add arrows, boxes, text and numbered steps, and pixelate what is private. Saved as a PNG that stays editable.
Screen recording, shared as a link
Record the screen with your narration. The recording writes itself up with a title, chapters and a summary, and from your Deixis account it shares as a link anyone can open without one. The Loom you can stop paying for.
Meetings, no bot, names included
Your microphone and the other side, transcribed on your machine while the call runs. Deixis tells the voices apart and remembers the ones you name, and never uploads a voice.
Your own buttons and workflows
Add a button to the palette: it gets the note on stdin and types back whatever it prints. Send finished notes to any URL you own. Chain steps: read the text off a screenshot, translate it, summarise it, post it.
Keep reading
From the blog
How to transcribe a meeting without a bot joining the call
Record both sides of a call on your PC and transcribe it there, with no bot in the participant list and no audio uploaded. How it works, and its limits.
Hold a key. Speak. Keep working.
Deixis is free, needs no account, and runs on your own device.
v1.3.2 · 64‑bit Windows 10/11 on Intel or AMD · macOS 13 on Apple silicon · 51 MB · nothing else to install · also for Windows · Android on Google Play