Comparison
Fathom is a genuinely good AI notetaker with a generous free plan — but it records to the cloud, usually with a bot in your meeting. echo99 keeps recording, transcription, and speaker labels on your Mac, with no bot and no account.
Fathom is a cloud AI meeting assistant: it records, transcribes, and summarizes your Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams calls, extracts action items, and syncs them to your CRM. It is best known for a generous free tier and high-quality summaries. A bot joins the meeting by default; a 2026 desktop app added bot-free capture in beta. It runs on the web, macOS, and Windows. If polished AI notes pushed straight into HubSpot or Salesforce are your priority, Fathom is a strong pick — provided cloud processing of your calls is acceptable.
| echo99 | Fathom | |
|---|---|---|
| How it records | Captures your mic and your Mac's audio output locally — no bot | A bot joins Zoom / Meet / Teams by default; a newer desktop app adds bot-free capture (beta) |
| Transcription | On-device; audio never leaves your Mac; works offline | Cloud transcription in real time; no on-device or offline mode |
| AI notes | On-device notes from the transcript (in development) | Its core strength: instant summaries, action items, and an 'Ask Fathom' assistant — processed in the cloud |
| Raw audio | Keeps mic.wav + system.wav as separate tracks you own | Recordings are stored in Fathom's cloud (transcript-only, audio, or full video) — not local files by default |
| Speaker labels | Me + Them-1, Them-2, … plus on-device speaker identification you can name | Speaker attribution in the cloud, including in bot-free recordings |
| Account | None | Account required (Google / Microsoft sign-in, usually with calendar access) |
| Price | Free | Free 'forever' plan (advanced AI summaries limited per month); Premium from $16/user/month, Business from $25/user/month (billed annually) |
| Platform | macOS 14.4+ | Web, macOS, Windows, Chrome — Zoom, Meet, Teams |
| Sharing & integrations | Plain local files — share them however you already share files | HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Notion, Gmail, and hand-offs to ChatGPT / Claude |
Comparison last verified July 2026 — check both products for current details.
You’re on a sales or customer-success team that needs meetings to record and summarize themselves, AI action items pushed into HubSpot or Salesforce, and shareable, searchable recordings your teammates — including Windows users, or people who missed the call — can open from anywhere. Fathom’s free tier is generous and its cloud workflow is exactly what echo99 deliberately avoids.
Your calls can’t be uploaded or handed to a bot; you want the raw recordings — separate WAV tracks — not just cloud-stored notes; you want speaker-labeled transcripts that work offline; or you’d rather not create an account and connect your calendar. echo99 does all of that locally, for free.
Compare echo99 with other tools: Otter alternative, tl;dv alternative, Granola alternative
Free download. No account. Recording and transcription stay on your Mac.
Free · macOS 14.4+ · Notarized by Apple