Quick answer: The best Fathom alternatives in 2026 are Acta for teams that need follow-ups, decisions and role-based reports across meetings, Fireflies for broad integrations and uploaded files, Otter for low-cost transcription, tl;dv for recording libraries, Granola for bot-free notes you write yourself, and Read AI for meeting coaching. If you only need basic summaries, Zoom, Teams or Meet AI may be enough.
Fathom is a good notetaker with a generous free plan, so most people who search for a Fathom alternative are not unhappy with the summaries. They hit a specific wall: no uploads, a team plan that needs at least two paid seats, or CRM sync locked to the Business tier. This guide covers what those walls are, which apps like Fathom get past them, and who should simply stay put.
All prices below were checked against vendor pages and search results as of October 2026. Prices change often, so confirm on the vendor's own pricing page before you buy.
Why do people look for Fathom alternatives?
Fathom records Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls, writes summaries and action items, and has a free plan with unlimited recordings and storage. That is a strong offer. The reasons people look elsewhere are usually narrower:
- Free summaries are capped. According to Fathom's pricing page, the free plan gives advanced AI summaries for your first five calls each month. After that you get the general summary template only.
- Teams pay for every seat. The Team plan is $19 per user per month ($15 billed annually) and Business is $34 ($25 billed annually), both with a two-user minimum. Fathom's help centre says free seats are no longer offered on these plans.
- CRM sync sits on the top self-serve tier. Automatic CRM field updates and deal views are Business-plan features, so a sales team on Team or Premium does not get them.
- No uploaded recordings. Fathom's help article on uploading external recordings says it only records and transcribes live Zoom, Meet and Teams calls and does not support uploaded calls. If you have recordings from a phone, a webinar tool or an old system, Fathom cannot process them.
- Coverage gaps. Fathom's help centre says it captures the main room only (not breakout rooms or webinars), records a call only when you are also on it, and lists its bot-free desktop mode as Mac only for now. In-person capture is through the iOS app.
- Reliability complaints. Reviews on G2 and Capterra rate Fathom highly overall, but recurring complaints mention trouble getting the notetaker into ad hoc meetings and missed auto-recordings when a meeting link changes at the last minute.
None of these is a deal-breaker for everyone. They matter if they match how your team actually meets. For a feature-by-feature view, see our Acta vs Fathom comparison.
What are the best Fathom alternatives in 2026?
Each tool below gets the same four headings so you can compare like with like. Acta is our product, so we have tried to be as plain about its limits as about anyone else's.
1. Acta
Best for: teams that want meetings turned into follow-ups, decisions and structured reports, not just a summary.
What stands out:
- Several ways to capture: a meeting bot that joins Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams from your calendar; a bot-free AI notetaker in the form of a Windows and Mac desktop app and a Chrome extension for browser meetings; mobile apps for in-person meetings; and uploaded recordings, which covers the gap Fathom leaves.
- Action items with owners and due dates, a decisions log and a Follow-ups view, plus follow-up email drafts.
- 40 report templates in 11 role groups, including MEDDPICC, BANT, SPICED and SPIN for sales, 1:1s, board minutes, SOAP drafts, PRDs and Jira ticket suggestions. Acta can pick the template from the conversation.
- OneChat answers questions across all your meetings and shows the sources. A connector lets Claude and ChatGPT read your meetings too.
- Reports push to Salesforce, HubSpot or Zoho on a paid plan, and export to PDF, Word or Markdown. People only see meetings they have access to, and Acta does not use customer data to train AI models.
Limits: Acta does more than a simple notetaker, which means more to set up and learn if you only want a quick summary after each call. The desktop app records your computer's sound and your microphone but not your screen, so there is no video replay of shared slides from that mode. CRM push needs a paid plan.
Pricing: a free 15-day trial; plans are on the Acta pricing page.
2. Fireflies
Best for: teams that want a widely used notetaker with many integrations and support for uploaded audio and video.
What stands out: Fireflies accepts uploaded MP3, M4A, WAV and MP4 files, and its own materials say it transcribes in more than 100 languages. Its AskFred assistant answers questions about meetings, and Business adds team analytics and unlimited storage.
Limits: some features use AI credits, and Fireflies' billing guide says paid users are moved to the lowest credits add-on automatically when included credits run out unless they change that setting. Pro storage is capped at 8,000 minutes per seat, and Fireflies' own pages describe the free plan's limits inconsistently, so check before relying on it.
Pricing (as of October 2026): Free; Pro $10 per user per month billed annually ($18 monthly); Business $19 annually ($29 monthly); Enterprise $39 billed annually. More detail in Acta vs Fireflies.
3. Otter
Best for: individuals and students who mostly need transcripts and want a low entry price.
What stands out: Otter's agent joins Zoom, Meet and Teams, captures slides and writes summaries with action items. Its iOS and Android apps cover in-person conversations, and its desktop app records Mac or Windows calls without a bot joining. Otter AI Chat answers questions across meetings.
Limits: the free Basic plan gives 300 transcription minutes a month with a 30-minute cap per conversation, which runs out quickly for anyone with daily calls. Minutes and file imports are also capped on Pro.
Pricing: Free Basic plan; Pro, Business and Enterprise are paid. Otter's pricing page showed different figures in different views when we checked, so confirm the current rate there. See Acta vs Otter.
4. tl;dv
Best for: teams that want a searchable library of recorded calls and recurring reports across many meetings.
What stands out: tl;dv records Zoom, Meet and Teams, and its desktop app can capture calls on your device without a bot. Its own pages say it transcribes in 30 to 40+ languages and detects the language automatically. The Business plan adds multi-meeting insights and scheduled reports that managers can run across their team's calls.
Limits: the cross-meeting features sit on the Business tier, and tl;dv's published Business price differs between its own recent pages and third-party trackers, so get a quote in writing.
Pricing (as of October 2026): a free plan; tl;dv's recent pages list Pro at $18 per seat per month billed annually ($29 monthly). Check its pricing page for Business and Enterprise.
5. Granola
Best for: people who take their own notes in meetings and want AI to fill in the gaps, with no bot in the call.
What stands out: Granola runs on macOS, Windows, iOS and Android and captures your device's audio instead of joining as a bot. You type rough notes, then Granola enhances them from the transcript and shows the AI's additions in a different colour so you can tell them apart.
Limits: Granola says it deletes audio after transcription, so there is no recording to replay. It does not start transcribing until you open a note, which suits careful users but means it will not quietly cover a meeting you forgot about.
Pricing (as of October 2026): free Basic plan with 30 days of history; Business $14 per user per month, billed monthly; Enterprise from $35 per user per month. See Acta vs Granola.
6. Read AI
Best for: managers and presenters who want meeting metrics and coaching alongside notes.
What stands out: Read AI adds a Speaker Coach with talking speed, filler words and other metrics, plus engagement and sentiment scores. It also has search across meetings and integrations with tools like Notion, Salesforce and HubSpot on paid plans.
Limits: sentiment and engagement scores rely partly on facial and verbal cues, which some participants find uncomfortable; Read's support pages say EU and UK users do not get facial inputs, and anyone can switch the affective metrics off. The free plan covers five meetings a month.
Pricing (as of October 2026): per Read AI's plans page, Pro is $15 per user per month billed annually ($19.75 monthly) and Enterprise is $22.50 annually ($29.75 monthly).
7. Built-in Zoom, Teams and Google Meet AI
Best for: teams that live on one meeting platform and only need a summary of each call.
What stands out: nothing extra to install, and nothing new for participants to accept.
- Zoom AI Companion meeting summaries are included with paid Zoom Workplace plans at no additional cost, once an admin turns them on.
- Microsoft Teams intelligent recap needs a Teams Premium or Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, according to Microsoft Learn.
- Google Meet "Take notes for me" works on eligible Workspace editions such as Business Standard and Enterprise Standard, and the organiser's edition is what counts, per Google Workspace Admin Help.
Limits: each one works inside its own platform. If you meet customers on Zoom and colleagues on Teams, your notes end up in two places with no shared search or follow-up list. We compare them in more depth in Acta vs built-in meeting AI.
How do you choose the right Fathom alternative?
Start with the problem that made you look, not with feature lists. Then check these points in order:
- Where do your meetings happen? If every call is on one platform, built-in AI may be enough. If you mix Zoom, Teams, Meet, browser calls and in-person meetings, pick a tool that covers all of them in one place.
- Bot or no bot? A bot is easy to set up and works without anything installed. A bot-free app avoids the extra participant in client calls. Our roundup of AI notetakers without a bot compares the options.
- What happens after the meeting? If the summary is the end product, almost any tool here will do. If you need owners, due dates, decisions and a list of what is still open across weeks of meetings, test that specifically.
- Do you need uploads? If you have phone recordings, webinars or older files, rule out tools that only capture live calls.
- Which systems need the output? Check CRM, Jira and export support on the exact plan you would buy, not the top tier. Sales teams can use our guide to AI meeting assistants for sales teams.
- What does a team really cost? Multiply the per-seat price by everyone who needs access, check minimum seats, and ask whether AI credits or storage caps add to the bill.
Whichever tool you choose, recording people needs their consent where the law requires it. Tell participants before you record, and read our guide on whether it is legal to record meetings with AI for what to say.
Which Fathom alternative is best for which team?
- Sales: Acta for MEDDPICC, BANT, SPICED or SPIN reports pushed to Salesforce, HubSpot or Zoho; Fireflies for broad integrations.
- Product and engineering: Acta for PRD drafts, Jira ticket suggestions and a decisions log; tl;dv for a shared recording library.
- Managers and leadership: Acta for follow-ups and 1:1 reports across many meetings; Read AI if coaching metrics matter most.
- Individuals and students: Otter or Granola's free plans, or Fathom's.
- Single-platform teams with basic needs: the AI already built into Zoom, Teams or Meet.
Who should stay on Fathom?
Switching tools has a cost, and Fathom is still a sensible choice for many people. Stay if:
- You are an individual who records a lot of calls and the free plan's unlimited recordings and storage cover you.
- Your team is already on Fathom Business and uses its CRM field sync and coaching scorecards every week.
- All your meetings are live Zoom, Meet or Teams calls that you attend yourself, so the upload and presence limits never come up.
- You are on a Mac and happy with its bot-free desktop mode.
What should you test during a free trial?
Most of these tools offer a free plan or trial, so run a short, fair test instead of reading more reviews:
- Use the same three real meetings in each tool you shortlist: one internal, one with a customer and one messy meeting with several speakers.
- Check speaker names, whether action items have the right owners, and whether decisions are captured or lost.
- Ask each tool a question that needs more than one meeting to answer, such as "what did we agree with this client last month?".
- Push the output to the system you actually use, such as your CRM or Jira, and see what arrives.
- Ask two or three teammates which notes they would rather read.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free alternative to Fathom?
For individuals, Otter, Fireflies, tl;dv, Granola and Read AI all have free plans, but each caps minutes, meetings, history or AI features differently. Fathom's own free plan is still one of the more generous, so compare limits against how many meetings you have each week.
Which Fathom alternative works without a bot?
Acta's desktop app and Chrome extension, Granola, Otter's desktop app and tl;dv's desktop app all capture meetings from your own device without a bot joining the call.
Can Fathom transcribe uploaded recordings?
Not as of October 2026. Fathom's help centre says it only records live Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls and does not support uploaded calls. Acta and Fireflies both accept uploads.
Is built-in Zoom, Teams or Meet AI a good Fathom alternative?
It can be if you use only one platform and need a summary per meeting. Teams intelligent recap needs a Teams Premium or Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, and none of the built-in tools combine notes across platforms.
To see how Acta handles your own meetings, start a free 15-day Acta trial.
