I've used otter.ai regularly—across team meetings, client calls, and personal interviews—and I've also built Notigo, so I've seen these tools up close. Here's where otter shines and where it falls short.
1. Not Real-Time Enough
Otter.ai does offer live transcription during meetings, and the quality is usually decent. But what's always frustrated me is that it doesn't really work in real time—not in a way that feels interactive or editable. You're essentially watching words appear, but you can't do much with them until after the meeting ends.
If the transcript has mistakes (and let's be honest, it often does), you're stuck with fixing everything once the call is over. I've had meetings where I spent more time cleaning up Otter's notes than I did in the actual meeting.
Notigo solves this by giving you real-time notes that you can actually edit during the call. You see the structure forming as you speak. It feels more like a dynamic assistant than a passive recorder. And that just keeps you more engaged.
2. A Bot That Can Be Intrusive
Otter uses a bot to join your meetings automatically. It's meant to be helpful—recording and transcribing without you lifting a finger—but in practice, it's… clunky.
It's shown up in meetings I forgot to remove it from. It's joined client calls without warning. And more than once, someone asked, "Uh, who's Otter Notetaker?" It's not the end of the world, but it's not great either. Especially when the bot shows up in meetings you didn't plan to record.
Notigo avoids all that. There's no bot, no email invites, no surprise guests. You just open Notigo in your browser when you need it. That simplicity gives me peace of mind.
3. Calendar Access Can Feel Like a Lot
To work the way it does, Otter needs full access to your calendar. That might not bother some people, but personally, I'm not a fan. Giving a third-party app access to every meeting on my schedule feels like overkill.
Notigo skips the whole calendar integration thing. It doesn't read your invites or try to figure out your schedule. You decide when to use it, and that's it. It's a small difference, but it makes Notigo feel more private and controlled.
4. Cleanup Can Be a Pain
Otter gives you summaries, yes. It highlights key phrases, identifies speakers, and looks polished at first glance. But once you start digging into the transcripts—especially if you're dealing with multiple speakers or accents—it can get messy fast.
You'll often find yourself reformatting, rewording, or just deleting chunks that don't make sense. And you can't really tweak anything live, which means you're doing all that work after the meeting.
With Notigo, I'm able to see the structure of my notes as the meeting unfolds. I can clean things up in real time, add comments, delete filler—it feels more natural. And by the end of the meeting, the notes are usually good to go.
5. Complex, Clunky, and Hard to Leave
Otter has a ton of features: integrations with Zoom and Teams, analytics, AI summaries, even a little chatbot that can search your transcript. Sounds great in theory—but in practice, it's a lot.
If you just want something simple to help you capture ideas and share them, it can feel bloated. You get lost in menus. You wonder why you need a "workspace" just to write down what someone said.
Notigo took a different approach. It's lightweight, focused, and dead simple to use. There's no learning curve. You open it, it listens, it writes—done. You can edit live, export when you're done, and move on with your day.
⚖️ So Where's otter.ai Strong? And Where It Isn't
Things it does well:
- Live transcription with good accuracy
- Speaker identification, audio capture, and slide screenshots
- Integrations with Zoom, Meet, Teams, and productivity tools like Zapier
But here's what users often complain about:
- Bots showing up unannounced or repeatedly
- Inconsistent transcripts in multi-person conversations
- Needing manual cleanup post-meeting
- Full calendar access feels invasive
Final Take: Will otter.ai Work for You?
If your priority is capturing audio live and you don't mind dealing with bots and post-meeting cleanup—Otter's solid. It's trusted by many and works well for straightforward use cases.
But if you want something cleaner, more private, and less distracting—and you care about real-time, editable notes—Notigo's designed for that. It lives in your browser, respects your control over when it's active, and delivers structured notes you can tweak as you go.
