tl;dv alternatives: what to switch to and why
Wispr Notetaker is the best tl;dv alternative if you want meeting notes without a bot in the call. It records on your device, so no bot appears in the participant list, and it names speakers in the final transcript across Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Slack huddles. Your notes, summaries, and transcripts also work in Claude and ChatGPT, on the free plan.
The right pick depends on why you're leaving. If tl;dv's free plan ran out of AI notes, Fathom's free plan keeps summarizing. If your team runs on CRM sync and sales workflows, Fireflies fits, or tl;dv itself still does. Otter suits in-person recording, Jamie keeps your data in the EU, and Granola is the choice for Android.
The best tl;dv alternatives
Wispr Notetaker is the best tl;dv alternative without a bot
Best for people who want accurate, named notes from their own meetings with nothing joining the call.
Wispr Notetaker records on your device, so no bot appears in the participant list and no host has to admit anything. It works across Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Slack huddles, and in person, on Mac, Windows, and iPhone. Speakers are named in the final transcript from your calendar invite, your personal dictionary, and clues in the conversation, and a second pass after the call fixes mistakes before the summary is written.
That is where it pulls ahead of tl;dv, whose bot-free mode shows speakers as numbers unless the recording matches a calendar event. Your notes, summaries, and transcripts work in Claude, ChatGPT, and other AI tools on the free plan, where tl;dv's connector starts at Pro. Pro costs $12 a month billed annually, against $18 for tl;dv Pro, and includes Wispr Flow dictation.
Where it falls short:
- No Android app
- 21 languages, against tl;dv's 30-plus
- No video or screen share stored beside the transcript
Fathom is the best tl;dv alternative if the free plan ran out
Best for people who hit tl;dv's free AI notes limit and don't mind a bot in the call.
tl;dv Free stops giving full AI notes after your first 10 meetings, and that limit never resets. Fathom's free plan records and transcribes unlimited meetings, gives advanced summaries on your first five calls each month, and keeps summarizing with a general template after that. On a budget of zero, it goes further than any other tool here.
If the bot is the reason you're leaving tl;dv, Fathom won't fix it. If cost is the reason, it's the closest like-for-like tl;dv alternative.
Where it falls short:
- A bot joins your calls by default
- Bot-free recording is a Mac-only beta
Fireflies is the tl;dv alternative for sales teams
Best for sales and customer teams that want meeting data pushed into the CRM.
Like tl;dv, Fireflies sends a bot to Zoom, Meet, and Teams calls that captures audio, video, and named speakers. Business adds CRM autofill for Salesforce and HubSpot, at $19 a seat billed annually against $29 for tl;dv Business. Its bot-free Take Notes mode also tells the room, with a chat message, an audio notice about 10 seconds in, and an "AI Taking Notes" watermark on your camera.
Where it falls short:
- Take Notes saves no audio or video and drops speaker labels
- Advanced features such as AskFred draw on a monthly pool of AI credits
Otter is the tl;dv alternative for hybrid teams on a budget
Best for teams that want one tool for online calls and in-room meetings, at the lowest paid price here.
Otter's bot joins Zoom, Meet, and Teams calls from your calendar, its desktop app records without the bot on Mac and Windows, and its iPhone and Android apps record in-person conversations. Pro costs $8.33 a month billed annually. If you start on Otter and later want named speakers without a bot, Wispr Notetaker imports your Otter history.
Where it falls short:
- Conversations stop at 90 minutes on Pro and 30 on the free plan, against tl;dv's three hours
- Otter's privacy policy says it trains its AI on de-identified audio and transcripts
Jamie is the tl;dv alternative that keeps your data in the EU
Best for European teams that value tl;dv's EU hosting and want to keep it without the bot.
tl;dv is a German company, and EU hosting is part of its appeal. Jamie keeps that and drops the bot. It records on your device on Mac and Windows, captures in-person meetings on your phone, processes and stores data in Frankfurt, deletes meeting audio after transcription, and never trains on customer data. It holds ISO 27001 in its own name.
Where it falls short:
- The free and Plus plans cap AI notes each month
- Pro costs €39 a month billed annually, more than tl;dv Pro
- It can't record phone calls
Granola is the bot-free tl;dv alternative for Android
Best for Android users who want bot-free notes from in-person meetings.
Granola records device audio with no bot, and you jot rough notes during the meeting that its AI fills in afterwards. Its Android app, added on July 1, 2026, is built for in-person conversations, and video calls go through its desktop app on Mac or Windows. Our Granola alternatives comparison covers more options, and Wispr Notetaker imports your Granola history if you switch later.
Where it falls short:
- Speakers are named only on Google Meet and Zoom on Mac, and show as "Me" and "Them" everywhere else
- In our side-by-side accuracy test of about 18,000 words, Granola made 32% more meaningful errors than Wispr Notetaker
- Notes older than 30 days are hidden on the free plan
- It trains on anonymized data by default, with an opt-out
The decisive difference: names in a bot-free recording
Nearly every tl;dv alternative here can record without a bot in some form. Very few keep the speaker names when they do.
tl;dv drops the names when the bot stays out
tl;dv's bot recordings show who said what. Its bot-free desktop mode records your microphone and system audio only, with no video, screen share, or chat. tl;dv's own review page says those audio-only recordings show speakers as numbers unless the recording matches a calendar event. Voice identification can close the gap, and it is opt-in on Business.
The trade-off runs through the rest of the field. Fireflies' Take Notes mode drops speaker labels, and Granola shows "Me" and "Them" outside Google Meet and Zoom on Mac. Keep the bot out, and on most tools the names go with it.
Wispr Notetaker names speakers without a bot
During the meeting, speakers show as You and Them. In the final transcript, they are named from the calendar invite, your personal dictionary, and clues in the conversation. Anyone it couldn't place, you name once, and that name applies across the whole transcript. It creates no voiceprints or biometric profiles, on any plan. Wispr Notetaker vs tl;dv compares the two tools row by row.
tl;dv and its alternatives, side by side
Three of these tools never put a bot in the call: Wispr Notetaker, Jamie, and Granola. Prices are per user per month, checked November 2026.
Why people leave tl;dv
The free plan's AI notes run out for good
tl;dv's free plan offers unlimited recordings and transcripts, which makes it look like one of the most generous in the category. The AI notes work differently. Your first 10 meetings get notes that summarize the whole meeting, and after that only the first 10 minutes of each meeting does.
tl;dv's help centre is explicit that these limits apply for the lifetime of the account and don't renew monthly. The same goes for the 10 free AI prompts and 10 AI reports. Free recordings are also deleted after three months, and after three days the video moves to archived storage that can take up to an hour and a half to restore.
The bot is visible, and Google Meet now flags it
tl;dv's bot joins your calls as a participant named after you. Google Meet has started labelling third-party meeting bots as potential risks in the waiting room, and tl;dv's help centre says its bot may appear highlighted in red, with only a Deny button visible at first.
The change is Google's and applies to every meeting bot, not only tl;dv's. It still puts the bot in front of everyone in the call, including the client who has to decide whether to let it in.
Going bot-free means giving things up
tl;dv's desktop app on Mac and Windows can record without the bot, but it captures your microphone and system audio only. There's no video, screen share, or chat, and speakers show as numbers unless the recording matches a calendar event.
tl;dv's help centre also notes that recording notifications may not appear automatically in bot-free mode, so telling participants is on you. Recordings stop at three hours on every plan, bot or no bot.
A 2026 security flaw exposed meeting details
In August 2026, a security researcher disclosed that any signed-in tl;dv user could query meeting records belonging to other customers, as Dark Reading reported. By the researcher's count, that covered about 180,000 meetings, with details such as meeting times, recording status, and the organizer's email address. tl;dv says the recordings, transcripts, and notes of private meetings were never exposed, and it closed the flaw in August 2026.
When to stay on tl;dv
Not every team needs a tl;dv alternative. For some, tl;dv is still the right tool, and switching would cost them something real.
Stay if you want video, screen share, and shareable clips stored beside the transcript. tl;dv's bot records all three, and none of the bot-free tools here keep video. Stay if your meetings run in many languages, since tl;dv transcribes in more than 30. Stay if your team records from Android phones as well as computers, because tl;dv ships web, Chrome extension, Mac, Windows, iPhone, and Android apps on every plan, free included.
tl;dv's privacy policy also says customer content isn't used to train AI models, with no setting needed, and its data is hosted in the EU. If those are the reasons you chose it and the bot doesn't bother anyone, there's little to gain from moving.
Leaving tl;dv without losing your history
Wispr Notetaker can't import tl;dv history; its one-click import covers Granola and Otter. Your old meetings stay in tl;dv whichever tl;dv alternative you choose, so the order you leave in decides what you keep.
- Save what you need from free-plan meetings now. Free recordings are deleted after three months and can only be downloaded in the four weeks before deletion. Outside that window they can't be downloaded at all, even by someone on Pro, and clips can never be downloaded.
- Download paid-plan recordings before you cancel. Do it while the subscription is active, rather than counting on access after a downgrade.
- Turn off auto-recording and disconnect your calendar. Otherwise tl;dv keeps sending its bot to your scheduled meetings after you've moved on.
- Keep the account as an archive. Nothing needs deleting to switch, and the transcripts you can still reach stay searchable there.
Whichever tool you move to, tell people you're recording. With no bot in the participant list, the meeting platform won't announce the recording for you. Wispr Notetaker can post a consent notice in the meeting chat of supported apps once you turn it on, keeps a reminder to get consent on screen while it records, and lets your organization require people to confirm consent before a recording starts. In person, telling the room is still on you.
Wispr Notetaker is free to start, with no credit card, so you can try it on your next meeting before you cancel anything.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free tl;dv alternative without a bot?
Yes. Wispr Flow's free plan includes Notetaker with speaker identification, questions across your meetings, and access from Claude and ChatGPT, with a weekly meeting limit. Granola's free Basic plan has no bot and no meeting limit, but hides notes older than 30 days. Jamie's free plan gives 10 AI notes a month, with meetings capped at 30 minutes.
Which tl;dv alternative works on Android?
Granola is the bot-free choice for Android. Its Android app, launched in July 2026, records in-person conversations and syncs them to your other devices, while video calls run through its desktop app. Wispr Notetaker runs on Mac, Windows, and iPhone.
Is Wispr Notetaker cheaper than tl;dv?
Yes. Pro costs $12 per user per month billed annually, or $15 monthly, against $18 or $29 for tl;dv Pro. Speaker identification and AI-tool access are on the free plan, where tl;dv's connector for AI tools starts at Pro. The same subscription also includes Wispr Flow dictation.
Does Wispr Notetaker keep recordings of my meetings?
No. Meeting audio is encrypted and kept only temporarily, to build your transcript, let you resume a meeting, verify quality, and troubleshoot, and then it's deleted automatically. Wispr Notetaker doesn't create voiceprints or biometric profiles of you or anyone on your call.
