Otter.ai vs Fathom

Otter.ai has been doing this longer than almost anyone and it shows in the interface. Fathom is newer, gives away more, and does not have the two problems that follow.

Six languages against thirty-eight

Otter.ai transcribes six languages including English, and the vendor's help centre says plainly that there are no others. That is not a roadmap gap being coy about itself; it is a stated limit.

Fathom transcribes thirty-eight, the same list on free and paid, with Mandarin the notable absence. Otter.ai scores 2 for coverage against Fathom's 4, and this is most of the reason.

If every call you take is in English the gap closes and Otter.ai's long track record starts to count for something. If it does not, this is a one-sided comparison.

Whose models learn from your calls

Otter.ai uses de-identified customer recordings to train its own models. De-identified is doing real work in that sentence and it is still your client's voice in the training set. Otter.ai scores 2 for privacy, the lowest of the six most-compared products here.

Its retention story is thin too: a thirty-day trash bin rather than a policy an administrator can set.

Fathom excludes customer data from training and scores 3 for privacy. It also gives you a choice between bot and bot-free capture rather than imposing one model, though the bot-free option is still marked as being in beta.

On money there is no contest. Fathom gives unlimited recordings, storage and transcription at no cost and scores 5 for value against Otter.ai's 3, with advanced summaries stopping after five calls a month on the free plan. Fathom also scores 5 for ease against Otter.ai's 4, and its CRM sync writes into record fields rather than linking back to a transcript.

Which should you choose?

Choose Fathom unless you have a specific reason to stay with Otter.ai. It costs less, covers more languages, keeps your recordings out of the training data and lets you turn the bot off.

Choose Otter.ai if live transcription with speaker identification on a free plan is the specific thing you need, all your meetings are in English, and the training policy does not trouble you.