Fellow built its reputation on structured meeting management: agendas, action items, feedback, one-on-ones. It's designed for managers and teams that want to make meetings more productive. But Fellow's approach isn't for everyone.
I tested Fellow for about two months in late 2024, and honestly? The meeting agenda templates are well-designed. The integration with Google Calendar works smoothly. The one-on-one features help managers stay organized with direct reports.
But here's what drove me nuts: Fellow focuses on meeting structure and follow-up, not transcription and AI summaries. If you want automatic recording, transcription, and AI-generated notes, Fellow isn't built for that. It's a different product category than tools like Otter or Fireflies.
Maybe you need actual AI transcription instead of manual note-taking templates. Or perhaps Fellow's pricing doesn't fit your team size or budget. Could be you want simpler meeting tools without the elaborate feedback and performance review features.
Fellow costs $7-10/user/month depending on the plan. That's reasonable for the feature set, but if you just need transcription, dedicated AI note-takers are often cheaper or offer better free tiers.
Why Look Beyond Fellow?
Fellow serves a specific use case well, but that focus creates gaps that push users toward alternatives.
No Automatic Transcription
This is the big one. Fellow doesn't automatically record and transcribe meetings. You manually take notes using their templates and structure. In 2026, when AI tools can transcribe, summarize, and extract action items automatically, manual note-taking feels outdated.
If you want hands-free meeting capture, tools like Fireflies, Otter, or Fathom do what Fellow doesn't: join your meetings, record everything, and generate transcripts and summaries without you typing a word.
Complicated for Simple Needs
Fellow includes one-on-one meeting features, feedback systems, performance reviews, OKR tracking. Great if you need all that. Overwhelming if you just want to capture meeting notes and action items.
Simpler alternatives focus purely on transcription and note-taking without the enterprise performance management features that many small teams never use.
Limited Free Tier
Fellow's free plan is restrictive: 10 meetings per month, basic features only. Many AI transcription tools offer way more generous free tiers. Otter gives you 300 minutes per month free. Fireflies offers unlimited transcription on the free plan with limitations on AI features.
For individuals or small teams testing meeting tools, Fellow's free tier doesn't provide much runway.
Not Ideal for Sales or Client Calls
Fellow is built for internal team meetings and one-on-ones. It lacks the sales-specific features that tools like Avoma or Gong provide: call analytics, deal insights, conversation intelligence.
If you're in sales or customer success, Fellow doesn't address your specific workflows. You need tools designed for external calls, not internal team meetings.
The Focus on Structure Can Feel Rigid
Fellow's strength is meeting structure: agenda templates, talking points, action items. But some teams find this structure constraining. If your meetings are informal brainstorms or creative discussions, Fellow's template-driven approach might feel too formal.
What Makes a Good Fellow Alternative?
Choosing the right Fellow alternative depends on what you actually need from meeting tools.
Transcription Versus Structure
This is the fundamental split. Do you want automatic transcription and AI summaries (Fireflies, Otter, Fathom)? Or do you want structured meeting management with templates and follow-up (Fellow's approach)?
Most alternatives on this list prioritize transcription over structure. If you loved Fellow's agenda templates but wanted transcription added, you might not find a perfect match. You're choosing between two different philosophies.
Meeting Type Focus
Internal team meetings? One-on-ones? Sales calls? Customer interviews? Different tools optimize for different meeting types.
Internal meetings: Otter, Fireflies, MeetGeek handle team discussions well.
Sales calls: Avoma includes conversation intelligence and deal insights.
All-purpose: Fathom and Noota work across meeting types.
Free Tier Generosity
If you're an individual or small team, free tier limits matter. Compare:
Otter: 300 minutes/month free Fireflies: Unlimited transcription, limited AI features Fellow: 10 meetings/month free Fathom: Unlimited free for individuals
For testing or light usage, generous free tiers let you use tools without paying.
Integration Requirements
What tools does your team use? Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams? CRM systems like Salesforce or HubSpot? Project management tools?
Fellow integrates with calendars and some project tools. AI transcription tools focus on meeting platform integrations (Zoom, Teams, Meet). Sales tools connect to CRMs. Match the alternative's integrations to your stack.
Privacy and Security
AI transcription tools record and process everything said in meetings. If you discuss sensitive information, verify the tool's security, data handling, and compliance certifications. Fellow, Fathom, and enterprise options prioritize security. Smaller tools might have weaker protections.
Noota
Best for AI-powered meeting intelligence
Noota combines transcription with meeting intelligence. It records, transcribes, and analyzes meetings to extract insights, action items, and key moments.
The AI summaries are solid. After a meeting, Noota generates a summary highlighting decisions, action items, and important points. Saves you from manually reviewing hour-long transcripts to find what matters.
Custom note templates let you structure outputs for specific meeting types: sales calls, customer interviews, team standups. This bridges the gap between Fellow's structured approach and pure transcription tools.
Integrations with CRM systems help sales teams. Automatically log calls to Salesforce or HubSpot with transcripts and summaries attached. Good for teams needing meeting data in their existing workflows.
The interface is clean and modern. Not as polished as Fathom but better than some older tools. Mobile support works well for reviewing meetings on the go.
Pricing is competitive: around $20-30/month depending on features. More expensive than some alternatives but includes more sophisticated AI analysis.
Noota works well for teams wanting both transcription and meeting intelligence. It's less suitable if you just need basic transcription without the extra AI features.
Fireflies.ai
Best for unlimited free transcription
Fireflies.ai is one of the most popular AI meeting assistants, known for generous free tier and solid transcription quality.
The free plan offers unlimited transcription, which is wild. You can record and transcribe as many meetings as you want without paying. The catch? Advanced AI features (summaries, action items, conversation analytics) require paid plans starting at $10/user/month.
Transcription accuracy is good, especially for English. Not perfect, but good enough that you can follow along and understand what was said. The AI summaries on paid plans extract key points and action items reasonably well.
Integrations cover all major meeting platforms: Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams. The Fireflies bot joins automatically based on your calendar, records everything, and emails you the transcript afterward.
The conversation analytics on higher tiers help sales teams. Track talk time, keywords, sentiment. Good for coaching reps or analyzing customer calls at scale.
Where Fireflies struggles: the interface feels dated compared to newer tools like Fathom. Navigation isn't as intuitive. Search works but could be smoother.
Fireflies works great for budget-conscious teams or individuals needing unlimited transcription. If you want a more polished experience or better AI features, consider alternatives despite their higher costs.
Fireflies AI wants to automate your meeting notes using AI using transcript & search.
Otter.ai
Best for real-time collaboration and live transcripts
Otter.ai pioneered AI meeting transcription and remains one of the most well-known options. The real-time transcription and collaboration features set it apart.
The live transcript feature is killer for accessibility and remote meetings. As people talk, the transcript appears in real-time. Team members can highlight important moments, add comments, and insert photos during the meeting. This collaborative note-taking feels natural.
Transcription accuracy is solid, especially after years of improvement. Speaker identification works well once you train it. The mobile app lets you record in-person meetings or interviews easily.
The free tier gives you 300 minutes per month, which covers roughly 5-10 meetings depending on length. Reasonable for individuals or light usage. Paid plans start at $10/month for 1,200 minutes.
OtterPilot (their meeting bot) auto-joins Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams meetings to record and transcribe. Works smoothly most of the time, though occasionally has sync issues.
Where Otter falls short compared to newer tools: the AI summaries feel basic. Competitors like Fathom or Noota generate more sophisticated meeting insights. Otter focuses on transcription quality over advanced AI analysis.
Otter works well for teams prioritizing live collaboration and solid transcription. It's less suitable if you need advanced meeting analytics or sales-specific features.
Otter AI transcribes meetings, chats, collaboration via meeting recording software.
MeetGeek
Best for team meeting analytics and insights
MeetGeek focuses on extracting insights from meetings at scale. It's designed for teams that have tons of meetings and need to analyze patterns, not just transcribe individual calls.
The meeting analytics show team-wide patterns: talk time distribution, meeting frequency, topic trends. Good for managers wanting to understand how their team spends time in meetings and where efficiency improvements might help.
Automatic summaries include action items, key topics, and important moments. The AI does a decent job pulling out what matters, though it's not perfect. Sometimes it marks random comments as key points.
Integrations with Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams work smoothly. The MeetGeek bot joins automatically, records, and processes everything in the background.
The team library feature lets you share important meetings across the organization. Sales teams can review winning calls, product teams can reference customer feedback, everyone can search past meetings for specific topics.
Pricing starts around $19/user/month, more expensive than Fireflies or Otter. The features justify the cost if you need team analytics, but individuals might find it pricey.
MeetGeek works well for growing teams wanting to analyze meeting patterns and share knowledge. It's overkill for individuals just needing transcription.
Fathom
Best for free, unlimited meeting recording
Fathom offers completely free unlimited recording and transcription for individuals. No catch, no trial period, just free. This makes it ridiculously appealing for anyone tired of paid meeting tools.
The interface is the most polished of all alternatives. Clean, fast, intuitive. Recording and reviewing meetings feels effortless. The design quality rivals Notion or Linear: clearly built by people who care about user experience.
AI summaries are solid. Fathom generates key points, action items, and highlights without you asking. The accuracy impresses me more than Fireflies or Otter. Not perfect, but reliably useful.
Integrations cover Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams. The Fathom bot joins meetings automatically based on your calendar. You can also highlight moments during live meetings using keyboard shortcuts, which creates bookmarks in the transcript.
The team plan adds collaboration features (shared meeting library, team analytics) but costs $25/user/month, significantly more expensive than competitors. The individual plan staying free forever is what makes Fathom special.
Fathom works perfectly for individuals, freelancers, or small teams where one person needs meeting transcription. For larger teams needing shared features, the pricing becomes less compelling.
Avoma
Best for sales teams and revenue operations
Avoma is built specifically for sales teams and revenue organizations. If you're doing customer calls, sales meetings, or client success check-ins, Avoma's features target those use cases.
The conversation intelligence analyzes sales calls for talk ratio, keywords, objections, and next steps. Helps managers coach reps by identifying what's working and what's not across dozens of calls.
Automatic CRM logging saves reps from manual data entry. Every call gets transcribed, summarized, and logged to Salesforce or HubSpot with relevant details. This closes the gap between what happened on calls and what's documented in the CRM.
Deal insights aggregate information across multiple calls with the same prospect or customer. You can see the full conversation history, track progress, identify risks. Good for complex sales cycles with multiple touchpoints.
Scheduling and meeting lifecycle management handle the before, during, and after of meetings. Booking links, agenda templates, automatic follow-ups: the full workflow, not just transcription.
Pricing is enterprise-focused, starting around $19/user/month but you'll likely need higher tiers for full functionality. More expensive than general transcription tools but includes sales-specific features they lack.
Avoma works for sales teams, customer success, and revenue operations. It's complete overkill for internal team meetings or casual note-taking.
How to Switch from Fellow
Switching from Fellow to an AI transcription tool changes your meeting workflow fundamentally. Here's how to make the transition smoother.
Understand What You're Losing
Fellow's structured approach (agenda templates, action item tracking, feedback features) won't transfer to transcription tools. Most alternatives focus on recording and AI summaries, not meeting structure.
If you loved Fellow's agenda templates, you'll need to recreate that structure manually or find another tool for meeting prep. The transcription tools handle the during and after, not the before.
Export Important Meeting Notes
Fellow lets you export meeting notes and action items. Download anything important before canceling. The data is yours, but it's in Fellow's format.
Most new tools don't import from Fellow. You're starting fresh, which might actually be good. Clean slate for new workflows.
Test During Trial Periods
Most AI meeting tools offer free tiers or trials. Run them in parallel with Fellow for a week. Let the AI bot join your meetings alongside Fellow's manual notes.
Compare the outputs. Does the AI summary capture what Fellow's structured notes caught? Are action items extracted accurately? This tells you if the switch makes sense.
Set Up Integration Flows
If you used Fellow's integrations to send action items to Asana, Slack, or other tools, rebuild those flows with your new tool. Most AI assistants integrate with project management software.
Zapier or Make can bridge gaps if direct integrations don't exist. But verify the workflow before fully switching.
Train Your Team on New Expectations
Fellow required someone to take notes during meetings. AI transcription tools work automatically but someone still needs to review transcripts and action items afterward.
Set clear expectations: who reviews the AI summaries? Who follows up on action items? Who's responsible if the AI misses something important?
Keep Fellow for One-on-Ones (Maybe)
If you're a manager who loved Fellow's one-on-one features (talking points, feedback, check-in templates), you might keep Fellow alongside an AI transcription tool. Use transcription for group meetings, Fellow for structured one-on-ones.
This adds tool complexity but preserves workflows that work. Not every tool needs to do everything.
Which Fellow Alternative Should You Choose?
The right Fellow alternative depends on what you actually need from meeting tools.
If you want free unlimited transcription with no catches, Fathom offers the best deal: completely free for individuals with excellent quality.
If you need budget-friendly transcription for teams, Fireflies gives you unlimited free transcription with paid options for AI features.
If real-time collaboration and live transcripts matter, Otter's collaborative note-taking during meetings is unmatched.
If you want sophisticated AI summaries and meeting intelligence, Noota provides more advanced analysis than basic transcription tools.
If you need team analytics and meeting insights at scale, MeetGeek shows patterns across your organization's meetings.
If you're in sales or revenue operations, Avoma's conversation intelligence and CRM integration serve that use case specifically.
Fellow and AI transcription tools solve different problems. Fellow structures meetings and follow-up. Transcription tools automate recording and note-taking. Some teams use both: AI tools for transcription, separate tools for meeting structure and action tracking. Others pick one approach and commit. Try a few options with real meetings before deciding what workflow fits your team best.