Otter.ai vs Fireflies.ai

These are the two names most people arrive already knowing, and on the surface they do the same job: send a recorder to the call, produce a transcript and a summary, make it searchable. Two differences underneath that are large enough to decide the question on their own.

Languages

Otter.ai transcribes six languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese. Its own help centre answers a question about whether it supports others, such as Portuguese, with a flat no. That is not a limitation buried in a footnote; it is the answer to the most common question a non-English team will ask.

Fireflies.ai publishes a list running past a hundred languages, with the enumerated list available in its knowledge base rather than only a headline number. For a team meeting in Dutch, Polish, Turkish or Arabic, this comparison ends here.

What happens to your recordings

Otter.ai states that it uses a proprietary method to de-identify user data before using it to train its own models. Separately, it confirms that its AI service providers do not train on customer content. Both statements are true and they answer different questions, which is why reading only the second one is misleading.

Fireflies.ai states that meeting data is not used for AI model training and describes a zero-day retention arrangement with the vendors and partners it works with. It holds SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and HIPAA with a business associate agreement on the enterprise tier.

Which should you choose?

Choose Fireflies.ai if you meet in a language outside those six, want API access without an enterprise contract, or care that recordings are not used for training. It covers more languages and takes the firmer position on both counts. Choose Otter.ai if your team works in English, values a mature and settled interface, and wants live transcription with speaker identification at no cost. If neither training position satisfies you, the privacy-led entries are a better shortlist than either of these.