Top 5 Bubbles Alternatives & Competitors for AI notetaking in 2024

Meeting recordings were one of the greatest assets when the remote revolution changed the way we all interact at work in 2020, but they’re now becoming everything they set out to replace. Getting back from a day off and having 5 hours of meetings to walk through was never going to work.

Luckily, tools like Bubbles filter out all the unimportant points and instead gives you meeting recordings with detailed action points and next steps. But Bubbles isn’t the only tool that does this. In fact, there’s a few more tailored tools out there that will work as great Bubbles alternatives.

What is Bubbles?

Bubbles is an AI-powered note-taking tool designed to enhance productivity during meetings and collaborative sessions. It automatically transcribes spoken words into text, allowing users to focus on the discussion rather than taking manual notes. 

Bubbles also helps in organizing and summarizing key points, tasks, and decisions made during meetings. This tool is particularly useful for remote teams, as it streamlines communication and ensures that important information is captured and easily accessible for future reference.

Pros

While Bubbles may offer a broader range of features, Bubbles's simplicity, quick setup, and affordability make it a standout offering for solo entrepreneurs and small teams:

• Automatic Transcription: Bubbles' AI Notetaker can transcribe spoken words in real-time during meetings. This feature allows participants to focus on the discussion without the distraction of manual note-taking, ensuring no important details are missed.
• Full Meeting Recording: The tool records entire meetings, providing an audio and video backup. This is beneficial for reviewing details or clarifying discussions after the meeting, ensuring complete documentation of proceedings.
• Meeting Summary: After each meeting, Bubbles generates a concise summary highlighting key points, action items, and important takeaways. This aids in quickly grasping the essence of the meeting without going through the entire transcript.
• Action Items Identification: It can identify and compile a list of action items discussed in the meeting. This feature helps in tracking important tasks and ensures that they are not overlooked in post-meeting follow-ups.
• Integration with Meeting Platforms: Bubbles seamlessly integrates with popular meeting platforms and Google Calendar, making it easy to use in a variety of meeting environments. This integration streamlines the process of recording and transcribing meetings, enhancing overall efficiency.

Cons

Bubbles is a very strong option, however, it does have some drawbacks:

• No Screen + Cam Recording: Bubbles doesn’t work as a screen recording tool for async videos, meaning no asynchronous capabilities for this option. You can show your screen or camera, but not both. 
• Poor Embed Options: Bubbles doesn’t embed well in emails, Linear or other tools just yet, meaning you have to send URLs out to your team, creating more noise in their browsers.
• Lack of Collaboration Features: While Bubbles does give you AI notes which your team can collaborate on, it’s not a strong platform for decision-making and taking action. It is more of a mediator tool which needs to be connected to other workflows.
• No Advanced Editing Tools: The platform does not provide advanced editing tools for its transcripts or recorded content. Users seeking to edit or customize their meeting transcripts for clarity or context might find this limitation inconvenient compared to other tools that offer these capabilities.
• No CRM Integration: Some AI note-taking tools offer direct integration with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. This allows for seamless synchronization of meeting notes and action items with customer records, enhancing sales and client management processes.
• No Emotion and Sentiment Analysis: Some competitors offer emotion and sentiment analysis in their transcriptions. This feature analyzes the tone and sentiment of the conversation, providing deeper insights into the participants' attitudes and feelings during the meeting.
• Lack of Live Meeting Coaching: A few tools in the market offer real-time meeting assistance or coaching features. This could include live prompts for sales strategies, communication improvement suggestions, or real-time guidance based on the conversation flow.

Bubbles Pricing

Their Teams pro account costs just $10 per seat per month, but doesn’t have all features. Choose which meetings Notetaker joins as well as who it shares them with. Unlimited recording length in unlimited channels too.

Bubbles’s free plan

• AI Notetaker joins all meetings
• AI Notetaker shares with all participants
• Access inactive bubbles for 7 days
• 30 min recording length
• 2 channels

Best Overall Alternative: Claap

Claap presents itself as an attractive Bubbles alternative, especially in the realm of recording meetings. It stands out with its unique approach to handling meeting notes, offering features like automated transcription and AI integration, specifically designed for capturing meeting discussions. 

With a primary goal of enhancing business productivity, Claap covers a wide array of functions. It combines asynchronous video capabilities with high-quality meeting recordings and AI-powered summaries. 

This comprehensive platform facilitates smarter, more efficient communication and documentation for businesses, transforming the way they hold, record, and derive insights from their meetings.

What is Claap?

Claap is more than just a note-taking tool; it's an intelligent video wiki that revolutionizes the way businesses capture and utilize meeting content. Imagine having access to not only textual notes but also video recordings with accurate transcripts and AI-powered summaries – that's Claap in a nutshell.

What makes Claap stand out as the best overall AI meeting companion is its comprehensive approach to collaboration and data alignment. It's more than just an addition to your software arsenal; it’s a tool that streamlines and amplifies your research capabilities.

This is supported by screen recording and intelligent meeting recording that make Claap a holistic tool designed to take care of the scalable needs of growingly visual companies that want to stay aligned.

Claap vs Bubbles: Which Does What Better?

Let's delve into why Claap stands out as a top Bubbles competitor:

• Screen Recording: Claap integrates screen recording, which is a step ahead of Bubbles. This feature is particularly beneficial for teams that rely on visual aids during meetings.
• Advanced Collaboration: Claap excels in enabling advanced collaboration among team members, providing tools that facilitate a more interactive and engaging meeting experience compared to Bubbles. This includes speaker recognition, video annotation, threads, polls, and more.
• Customization: The ability to customize transcripts gives you the freedom to structure your meeting documentation in a way that aligns with your specific needs and workflow.

Pros

Let's take a closer look at some of Claap's standout features that make it a good Bubbles alternative:

• Video & Screen Recording: Claap seamlessly integrates video recordings with transcripts and summaries, providing a richer meeting documentation experience. This combination of video and text ensures you have multiple avenues to access and understand your meeting content.
• AI-Powered Summaries: Claap's AI summaries are not mere recaps; they provide context and highlight key points, allowing you to quickly grasp the essence of your meetings without sifting through lengthy notes.
• Competitive Pricing: Claap's pricing structure is designed to be competitive, ensuring that businesses of all sizes can access its powerful features without straining their budgets.

Cons

• Compatibility: the desktop app is currently only available on Mac. Windows is on the way.
• Sentiment Analysis: Compared to high level enterprise products, Claap is missing some of the top tier features like sentiment analysis and tone suggestions. This is reflected in the price however.

Claap pricing

Cost-effectiveness is a significant factor when considering Bubbles alternatives, and Claap doesn't disappoint. 

A Basic Recorder plan is as cheap as $8 per seat per month when you pay yearly. This level comes with unlimited video recordings, however they are capped at 30 minutes per video. 

If you want something more powerful, the Power Recorder option is as cheap as $24 per seat per month and comes with unlimited everything. An Enterprise plan is also available for businesses that need CRM integrations, advanced privacy, SSO, API, and more.

Claap’s free plan

• 10 minutes per user
• 10 minutes per video
• Maximum 20 recorders per space
• Chrome extension and Desktop app
• Video annotations
• Notion and Slack integrations

Best Audio-Only Alternative: Otter

For those on the lookout for an economical alternative to Bubbles, particularly for meeting recordings, Otter emerges as a notable choice. This platform, empowered by AI for transcription and note-taking, places a strong emphasis on capturing the essence of meetings. 

Otter excels with a robust set of features and is particularly attractive due to its comprehensive free plan, making it a practical option for budget-conscious users.

What is Otter?

Otter is designed to cater to a wide range of users, including those who are just starting their journey with note-taking tools or need an economical option. Its standout feature is its free plan, which offers impressive AI transcription capabilities without breaking the bank.

Pros

While Bubbles is known for its advanced features, Otter's free plan makes it an appealing choice for users who don't require the full spectrum of capabilities provided by Bubbles. Let's delve into why Otter is a noteworthy Bubbles competitor:

• Free Plan: Otter's complimentary offering is a significant draw, especially for those starting out or operating on a limited budget. This plan allows users to access essential features without financial constraints, unlike Bubbles.
• User-Friendly Interface: Otter is designed with simplicity in mind, making it more approachable for users who may find Bubbles' array of features overwhelming.
• Real-time Transcription: Otter provides real-time transcription capabilities, ensuring that you can capture discussions as they happen, which can be especially useful for live meetings.
• Slide Capture: Otter has the capability to copy the text from slides as well as voice to make sure it doesn’t miss a single detail in the meeting.
• Chat Capabilities: Recently, Otter AI Chat has been launched. This allows deeper collaboration so you can get answers to meetings questions instantly by using your database of transcripts.

Cons

• Poor Meeting Analytics: Some tools provide deeper analytics of meeting content, such as sentiment analysis, trend identification, and detailed participant engagement metrics, which are beyond the basic transcription services of Otter.ai.
• No Integrated Video Recording: Unlike some of its competitors, Otter.ai primarily focuses on audio transcription and may not offer integrated video recording or the ability to directly capture and sync video content with notes.
• Automated Action Item Extraction: Some note-taking tools have the capability to automatically identify and extract action items or tasks from meeting transcripts, a feature that might not be as developed in Otter.ai.
• Limited AI Summaries: While Otter.ai offers transcription services, it may not provide as advanced AI-powered summarization of meetings as some other tools do. These summaries are often context-aware and highlight key discussion points more effectively.
• Non-Customizable Transcripts: Advanced customization options for transcripts, such as adding annotations, custom tags, or editing layouts, might be more limited in Otter.ai compared to some other platforms.
• Missing Integration with a Wider Range of Business Tools: While Otter.ai integrates with popular platforms, other tools might offer a broader range of integrations, particularly with specialized business applications.
• No Speaker Identification and Attribution: Some competitors might offer more advanced speaker identification and attribution features, which are crucial in multi-speaker environments to accurately track who said what.
• Unlimited Access is Expensive: Otter does not have an unlimited option. Thye offer an Enterprise service for high demand accounts but the price of this can become expensive.
• Privacy scandals: Otter has a history of audio files being sent to third parties. Of course, Otter has now made efforts to rectify this, however, stories from customers are still off putting to read.

Otter Pricing

 Otter distinguishes itself not only with its complimentary plan but also through its premium offerings tailored for users with more advanced needs. 

The Pro tier, priced at $17 monthly for each user, offers 1200 minutes of transcription every month, with individual sessions capped at 90 minutes. This plan also permits the import of up to 10 audio or video files monthly.

For more demanding users, Otter's Business plan, at $40 per user each month, significantly increases the transcription allowance to 6,000 minutes and extends session durations up to a maximum of 4 hours.

Otter’s free plan

• Otter AI chat
• Zoom, MS Teams and Google Meet integrations
• 300 transcription minutes
• 30 minutes per sessions
• Up to 3 audio or video files

H2 - Best Customer Insights Alternative: Fireflies

When searching for Bubbles alternatives, sales and feedback focused businesses may be looking for a transcription solution that offers robust features designed to support their use cases. 

Fireflies is an excellent choice for those looking for a reliable and cost-effective option while still maintaining that reliability you’d expect from a Bubbles alternative.

What is Fireflies?

Fireflies is an AI-driven meeting transcription and note-taking tool. It features robust capabilities in accurately transcribing conversations. Fireflies is not a pure AI note-taking tool like Bubbles. However, it proves to be an invaluable asset for businesses seeking comprehensive record-keeping during meetings as a Bubbles alternative.

Source: fireflies.ai

Pros

• Accurate Transcription: Ensure precision in your meeting notes with Fireflies' impressive transcription accuracy;
• Integration Capabilities: Seamlessly connect with popular tools such as Zoom, Google Meet, and Slack to enhance your workflow;
• AI Summaries: Quickly grasp the essence of your meetings through the AI-powered summary feature. The AI voice assistant transcribes, summarizes and take notes during your meetings;
• Searchable Transcripts: Easily locate specific information within your notes for efficient post-meeting reference;
• Automated Action Items: Streamline task management with Fireflies automatically generating action items based on your discussions. For example, your CRM is auto-populated with meeting information, notes, recordings and more.
• A Great Free Option: Fireflies also offers a competitive free plan that gives you limited storage but lasts forever.

Cons

• Limited Integrations: Compared to competitors like Claap and Otter, Fireflies is lacking in integrations and doesn’t fit into your workflow if you work with CRMs like Salesforce.
• Sometimes Poor Transcriptions: Different accents are not well received, this may affect transcription quality.
• No Speaker Recognition: Fireflies doesn’t offer speaker recognition, meaning you don’t have access to call insights or advanced talk-time analytics.

Fireflies Pricing

Fireflies caters to diverse needs with its range of pricing plans, accommodating everyone from individual users to enterprise-level demands. 

• You can start with a free version with only 800 minutes of storage/seat, limited transcription credits and AI features for summaries are not included;
• Then, the pro plan starts at $10 per month per user with 8,000 minutes of storage per user and features AI tools;
• For the complete suite of features, including video screen capture, the cost rises to $29 per seat per month.

Fireflies free plan

• Limited transcription credits
• 800 mins of storage/seat
• Key Features
• Record Zoom, GMeet, MS Teams, +more
• Transcription for 69+ languages
• Automated meeting summaries
• Search within meetings
• Playback (1x, 1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75x, 2x)
• Comments & reactions
• Clip out moments as soundbites
• Global search
• Uploads
• 3 public channels
• Domain capture (Auto-add)
• Fireflies mobile app

Best Live Transcription Alternative: Reduct

If the necessity for real-time transcription in meetings is paramount, surpassing the need for mere post-meeting records, Reduct emerges as a standout solution. 

Bubbles alternatives often find their edge in recording and post-session transcripts, but Reduct carves its niche by offering live transcription services. This makes it an ideal choice for those who prioritize immediate transcription during their meetings, providing an enhanced and efficient meeting experience.

What is Reduct?

Reduct is an innovative AI-based platform that reinvents the traditional approach to taking meeting notes. It serves as a collaborative, transcript-based tool for video and audio content, allowing for efficient review, searching, highlighting, and editing of people talking at scale. This platform is especially useful for a range of fields including qualitative research, film production, legal and criminal justice, marketing, content creation, and education.

What sets Reduct apart is its Live Capture feature, which automatically transcribes spoken words in real-time during meetings. 

Pros

• Automatic Real-Time Transcription: Reduct's Live Capture feature automatically transcribes conversations in real-time during meetings, providing an accurate record of discussions. This feature is particularly useful for ensuring that no important detail is missed during meetings.
• Multi-Language Support: The platform supports transcription in over 30 different languages, making it versatile and suitable for global teams and multinational projects.
• Advanced Search Capabilities: With all content transcribed, Reduct allows users to search their entire repository of transcriptions. This includes the ability to search for exact matches or use natural language processing-powered fuzzy search to find relevant ideas and phrases.
• Collaborative Videoboard Feature: Reduct provides a 2D digital canvas called Videoboard for organizing and analyzing highlights and recordings. This feature enables teams to collaboratively storyboard, map out ideas, or perform affinity mapping, enhancing the team's ability to visualize and work with the data.
• Transcript Correction and Tagging: Users can correct transcription errors and use tags to categorize highlights, making it easier to navigate and organize key themes across recordings. This feature is especially useful for maintaining accuracy and improving the organization of meeting content.

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Cons

• Screen Recording: Unlike Claap, Reduct does not offer a screen recording feature. This functionality can be crucial for teams that rely heavily on visual aids and need to record their screens during meetings or presentations.
• Automated Meeting Summarization: Bubbles alternatives like Claap provide automated AI-driven meeting summaries, which can be a significant time-saver. Reduct, while offering transcription and video editing tools, does not specifically mention automated summarization of entire meetings, which might be a drawback for users looking for quick meeting overviews.
• Advanced Collaboration Tools: Tools like Claap offer advanced collaboration features such as video annotation, threads, and polls to enhance the meeting experience. Reduct focuses more on transcription and video editing, and may not offer the same level of in-depth collaboration tools.
• Embedding Options in Other Tools: Competitors like Fireflies offer more seamless integration and embedding options with other tools and platforms. Reduct, on the other hand, may have limitations in terms of embedding its content easily into emails or other collaboration tools.
• Specialized Features for Sales Teams: Fathom, another competitor, provides specialized features for sales teams, like deal intelligence and conversation analysis with AI. Reduct, while versatile, does not appear to have features specifically tailored for sales optimization.

Reduct Pricing

Reduct is the only offering here that does not have a free option. They do offer a 14 day free trial to any of their paid plans, however, your account will no longer work after those 14 days are up. 

Standard Plan: Priced at $30 per editor, per month, this plan offers access to Reduct's comprehensive platform features. It includes 10 hours of pooled transcription each month for each editor, allows up to 10 free commenters, and offers 1080p video exports. Users also benefit from unlimited storage with an individual media file size limit of up to 4GB.

Advanced Plan: At $50 per editor, per month, this plan includes everything in the Standard plan, along with additional perks. Users get up to 50 free commenters, video and audio redaction features, and cross-project functionality. It also offers more transcription export formats, Zapier integrations, high-resolution 4K exports, and supports individual media files up to 75GB. A free 14-day trial with all Advanced features is available, including 2 hours of AI transcription.

Enterprise Plan: Starting at $75 per editor, per month, the Enterprise plan encompasses all features of the Advanced plan. It provides SSO integration (SAML or Google-based), advanced access controls, SOC2 Type II and annual pentest reports, data processing agreement for GDPR & CCPA compliance, and a signed MSA with SLA including invoiced, annual billing. This plan also offers priority support. 

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Best One-Person Team Alternative: Fathom

Fathom steps into the arena as an accessible and budget-friendly Bubbles alternative, especially suited for solo entrepreneurs and small teams. 

This tool caters specifically to the unique needs of individual professionals and small businesses, offering a straightforward solution for meeting recordings and note-taking. Fathom ensures that smaller-scale operations have access to vital recording features, balancing user-friendliness with affordability, thus allowing these entities to efficiently capture and manage meeting details without being burdened by complexity or high costs.

What is Fathom?

Fathom caters to the often-overlooked segment of one-person teams and small businesses. Its streamlined approach and budget-friendly pricing make it an ideal choice for those who don't need the complexity and higher costs associated with larger team or enterprise solutions.

Pro

While Bubbles may offer a broader range of features, Fathom's simplicity, quick setup, and affordability make it a standout Bubbles competitor for solo entrepreneurs and small teams:

• Simplicity: Fathom’s ease of use is a major selling point. It offers a streamlined interface, removing any unnecessary complexities. This makes it an ideal choice for individuals or small teams who need a simple yet effective tool.
• Cost-Effective: Targeting small-scale users, Fathom’s pricing model is more affordable compared to Bubbles, which may be more cost-intensive for larger teams or enterprises.
• Intelligent Meeting Highlights: Once you’re in a meeting, click on Fathom to create highlights that will appear later in your recording.
• Full Transcripts: Get a full transcript of any meeting along with speaker identification
• Free Option is Very Powerful: Fathom offers unlimited calls to unlimited team members. It does reserve its strong features for its paid version, Fathom Teams.

Cons

Fathom is a very strong option, however, it does have some drawbacks:

• Only Supports 6 Languages: Other options offer 100+ language options, however, Fathom only supports English, Spanish, Italian, German, French, and Portuguese.
• No Screen Recording: Fathom doesn’t work as a screen recording tool, meaning no asynchronous capabilities for this option. 
• Poor Embed Options: Fathom doesn’t embed well in emails, Linear or other tools just yet, meaning you have to send URLs out to your team, creating more noise in their browsers.

Fathom Pricing

Fathom's pricing is tailored to meet the specific needs of one-person teams and small businesses. 

Fathom also offers a Fathom Teams product that costs $32 per seat per month for a Standard Plan, and $39 per seat per month for a Pro plan which includes CRM sync, SSO and advanced access controls.

Fathom’s free plan

• Unlimited minutes
• Unlimited users
• Salesforce, Hubspot, Notion and Slack integrations.

Which Bubbles Alternative is Right for You?

Claap - The Best Overall Alternative

Ideal for: Diverse businesses needing a holistic note-taking solution.

Why Choose Claap: It's the go-to for integrating video with AI-powered summaries and transcription customization, offering a well-rounded package for efficient meeting documentation.

Otter - The Best Audio-Only Alternative

Ideal for: Those conscious of budget, like students, freelancers, or small teams.

Why Choose Otter: Favored for its no-cost plan, Otter combines user-friendliness with live transcription, appealing to those needing AI transcription sans financial burden.

Fireflies - The Best Customer Insights Alternative

Ideal for: Businesses focusing on sales and customer feedback, requiring detailed transcription.

Why Choose Fireflies: Fireflies shines with precise transcription, AI-driven summaries, and seamless integration, offering a dependable and economical meeting documentation solution.

Reduct - The Best Live Transcription Alternative

Ideal for: Those prioritizing instant transcription during meetings.

Why Choose Reduct: Reduct specializes in real-time transcription, making it an ideal option for capturing every detail as it happens, enhancing meeting efficiency.

Fathom - The Best One-Person Team Alternative

Ideal for: Solo entrepreneurs and small teams looking for a simple yet effective recording tool.

Why Choose Fathom: Fathom's straightforwardness and affordability, coupled with smart meeting highlights and full transcripts, make it an excellent choice for smaller operations.

When choosing a Bubbles alternative, it's crucial to weigh your specific needs, financial limitations, and the features you desire to ensure the tool meets your business objectives. Each of these alternatives brings unique strengths to the table, addressing a wide range of requirements and preferences.