# Fathom Alternatives 2027: 11 Paid, Free & Open-Source

Source: https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/fathom/
Prices checked: 2026-11-13 (Zekai Price Ledger)

The best Fathom alternatives in 2027 are Fireflies.ai (best overall, $18/mo), tl;dv (best free plan: Unlimited recordings, 10 AI-note meetings) and Meetily (best open source, MIT). Fathom itself starts at $20/mo. Zekai checked these prices on vendor pages on 13 Nov 2026; 8 more are compared below, including 5 with a free plan and 2 open source.

| Tool | Type | Starting price | Free plan limit | Licence | Best for | Price checked | Links |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fathom (the tool being replaced) | — | $20/mo | Unlimited recordings and transcription, instant AI summaries | — | — | 2026-11-13 | [pricing](https://fathom.video/pricing) |
| Fireflies.ai | Free plan + paid | $18/mo | Unlimited transcription, limited AI summaries, 400 mins storage per team, 20 AI credits, 2-hour recording cap | — | Teams wanting a bot plus CRM-style analytics | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://fireflies.ai) [pricing](https://fireflies.ai/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/fireflies/) |
| Otter.ai | Free plan + paid | $16.99/mo | 300 transcription minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation, 3 lifetime file imports | — | Live transcription for solo professionals | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://otter.ai) [pricing](https://otter.ai/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/otter-ai/) |
| Granola | Free plan + paid | $14/mo | Basic: AI notes with 30 days of meeting history | — | Bot-free notes with a manual note pad | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://www.granola.ai) [pricing](https://www.granola.ai/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/granola-ai/) |
| Read AI | Free plan + paid | $19.75/mo | 5 meeting transcripts a month with summaries and search | — | Meeting reports plus email and chat summaries | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://www.read.ai) [pricing](https://www.read.ai/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/read-ai/) |
| tl;dv | Free plan + paid | $29/mo | Unlimited video recordings and transcription in 100+ languages; AI notes on 10 meetings | — | Free recordings, paid AI notes and playbooks | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://tldv.io) [pricing](https://tldv.io/pricing/) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/tldv/) |
| Tactiq | Free plan + paid | $12/mo | 10 transcripts and 5 AI credits a month, 1 user | — | Chrome-extension transcripts without a bot | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://tactiq.io) [pricing](https://tactiq.io/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/tactiq/) |
| MeetGeek | Free plan + paid | $15.99/mo | 3 hours of transcription a month, 3 months of transcript storage, bot and bot-free recording | — | Automations through Zapier, Make and n8n | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://meetgeek.ai) [pricing](https://meetgeek.ai/pricing) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/meetgeek/) |
| Krisp | Paid | $16/mo | No free plan | — | Noise cancellation plus a bot-free note-taker | 2026-11-13 | [site](https://krisp.ai) [pricing](https://krisp.ai/pricing/) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/ai-tools/krisp/) |
| Meetily | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | MIT | Fully local, offline meeting notes |  | [site](https://meetily.ai) [code](https://github.com/Zackriya-Solutions/meetily) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/meetily/) |
| Vexa | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | Apache-2.0 | Developers building meeting-bot pipelines |  | [site](https://vexa.ai) [code](https://github.com/Vexa-ai/vexa) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/vexa/) |
| Muesli | Open source | Free (self-hosted) | No limit (self-hosted) | MIT | Mac users wanting local transcription |  | [site](https://muesli.works) [code](https://github.com/Muesli-HQ/muesli) [Zekai page](https://zekaiwork.com/free-open-source/muesli/) |

## How each alternative compares with Fathom

- **Fireflies.ai** (Free plan + paid, $18/mo, checked 2026-11-13): Pro adds 8,000 minutes of storage per seat and a 2-hour recording cap on Free; Fathom's free plan lists unlimited recordings and no storage cap. Switch if your team needs 100+ language transcription, a Chrome extension that records without a bot, and Business-tier talk-time analytics. Stay with Fathom if unlimited free-plan recording and a flat $15 per user Team price matter more than Fireflies' AI-credit system.
- **Otter.ai** (Free plan + paid, $16.99/mo, checked 2026-11-13): Otter's Basic plan caps transcription at 300 monthly minutes and 30 minutes per conversation, while Pro raises that to 1,200 minutes and 90 minutes per meeting. Switch if you want live captions in Zoom, iOS and Android apps, and an $8.33 yearly Pro price. Stay with Fathom if you record long calls, because Fathom's Free plan sets no minute cap or per-meeting length limit on the pricing page.
- **Granola** (Free plan + paid, $14/mo, checked 2026-11-13): Granola captures device audio with no meeting bot joining and keeps 30 days of history on Basic; Fathom's default is a visible bot, with bot-free still labelled beta. Switch if attendees object to a bot in the call and you are comfortable working from a Mac, iOS or Android app. Stay with Fathom if you want unlimited free recordings, shareable clips and playlists, and one Zoom, Meet and Teams bot for the whole team.
- **Read AI** (Free plan + paid, $19.75/mo, checked 2026-11-13): Read AI also summarises email and messaging, and its Free plan stops at 5 meeting transcripts a month; Fathom Free has no meeting count limit. Switch if you want one assistant covering meetings, email and chat summaries, with Notion, Jira and Confluence links on Pro. Stay with Fathom if you need unlimited free transcripts, because Read AI's Free plan ends at 5 meetings a month.
- **tl;dv** (Free plan + paid, $29/mo, checked 2026-11-13): tl;dv's Free plan also gives unlimited recording and transcription in 100+ languages but limits AI notes to 10 meetings; Business adds AI playbook monitoring and objection handling. Switch if you want free recordings in 100+ languages and may later need sales-playbook monitoring on a $29 yearly Business tier. Stay with Fathom if you want AI summaries on every free call and a lower $15 yearly or $19 monthly team price.
- **Tactiq** (Free plan + paid, $12/mo, checked 2026-11-13): Tactiq's Pro tier lists unlimited transcripts at $8 on yearly billing, and its Free plan allows 10 transcripts and 5 AI credits a month. Switch if you want the cheapest paid tier and are fine with browser-based capture instead of a joining bot. Stay with Fathom if you need a free plan with no monthly transcript limit and AI summaries on every call.
- **MeetGeek** (Free plan + paid, $15.99/mo, checked 2026-11-13): MeetGeek's Free plan lists 3 hours of transcription a month and Pro 20 hours, with $0.50 per extra hour; Fathom lists no hourly cap. Switch if you want Pro-level AI agents and Zapier, Make and n8n workflows at $9.99 on yearly billing. Stay with Fathom if you hold more than three hours of calls a month and want a free plan that never meters transcription.
- **Krisp** (Paid, $16/mo, checked 2026-11-13): Krisp bundles noise cancellation and 1 hour a day of accent conversion into Core, and runs its note-taker without a bot; Fathom has no audio-cleaning feature. Switch if you take calls in noisy rooms and want noise cancellation and a note-taker in one $8 yearly subscription. Stay with Fathom if you need a permanent free tier, since Krisp offers a 7-day trial only.
- **Meetily** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): Meetily processes audio and summaries on your own machine by default, with no joining bot; speaker identification, API and MCP sit in a separate paid Meetily PRO. Switch if legal or privacy rules forbid sending call audio to a cloud vendor and you can run local models. Stay with Fathom if you want hosted CRM sync, shared team folders and nothing to install or maintain.
- **Vexa** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): Vexa is an API: a bot joins Google Meet, Teams or Zoom and streams speaker-attributed transcripts, with Markdown knowledge files in a git repo; Fathom is a finished app. Switch if your engineers want a meeting-bot API and transcripts stored as files you own. Stay with Fathom if you want a ready app with summaries, clips and CRM sync and no infrastructure work.
- **Muesli** (Open source, Free (self-hosted)): Muesli runs on-device speech recognition on Apple Silicon Macs only, joins no bot, and lets you pick Ollama, LM Studio or hosted models for summaries; Fathom is hosted. Switch if you work on an Apple Silicon Mac and want transcripts to stay on the device with your own model choice. Stay with Fathom if your team uses Windows or Linux, or needs shared workspaces and CRM updates after calls.

## Open-source options in detail

- **Meetily** (https://github.com/Zackriya-Solutions/meetily): Licence: MIT; Last release: 2026-09-12
- **Vexa** (https://github.com/Vexa-ai/vexa): Licence: Apache-2.0; Last release: 2026-10-09
- **Muesli** (https://github.com/Muesli-HQ/muesli): Licence: MIT; Last release: 2026-11-08

## Questions

### What is the best alternative to Fathom in 2027?
Fireflies.ai is the best overall Fathom alternative on this page ($18/mo). For no cost, tl;dv has a free plan (Unlimited video recordings and transcription in 100+ languages; AI notes on 10 meetings). To self-host, Meetily is open source (MIT).

### Is there a free version of Fathom?
Yes. Fathom has a free plan: Unlimited recordings and transcription, instant AI summaries. Paid plans start at $20/mo, checked on 13 Nov 2026.

### Is there a 100% free alternative to Fathom?
Yes. Meetily, Vexa, Muesli are open source and free to self-host. Fireflies.ai, Otter.ai, Granola, Read AI, tl;dv, Tactiq, MeetGeek have a free plan with limits, shown in the table.

### What is cheaper than Fathom?
Tactiq starts at $12/mo, against $20/mo for Fathom, as listed on each vendor's pricing page on 13 Nov 2026.

### How much do Fathom alternatives cost for a team of 5?
If each of 5 people buys the entry paid plan, at the prices Zekai checked on 13 Nov 2026, the monthly cost is Tactiq $60/mo, Granola $70/mo, MeetGeek $79.95/mo, against Fathom $100/mo for Fathom. Team and business plans can cost more per seat. The Zekai Cost Finder on this page recalculates for any team size.

### Which is better, Fireflies.ai or Fathom?
Pro adds 8,000 minutes of storage per seat and a 2-hour recording cap on Free; Fathom's free plan lists unlimited recordings and no storage cap. Choose Fireflies.ai if your team needs 100+ language transcription, a Chrome extension that records without a bot, and Business-tier talk-time analytics. Stay with Fathom if unlimited free-plan recording and a flat $15 per user Team price matter more than Fireflies' AI-credit system.

### Why are people leaving Fathom?
The documented reasons are: Fathom states it updated pricing and packaging as of August 2025: Team Edition Pro became Business and Team Edition Standard became Team (28 Aug 2025); Fathom's legacy-plan guide says free seats are not supported on the newer Team and Business plans, so free-seat members must be upgraded to paid seats or removed before a team moves over (19 Oct 2026). Each is sourced in the section above.

### What is better than Fathom?
It depends on the job. Fireflies.ai offers deeper team analytics, Granola captures audio without a meeting bot, and tl;dv has a free plan with unlimited recording in 100+ languages. For local processing, Meetily and Muesli are open source.

## Related on Zekai

- [Otter.ai alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/otter-ai/)
- [Granola alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/granola-ai/)
- [Read AI alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/read-ai/)
- [tl;dv alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/tldv/)
- [Krisp alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/krisp/)
- [Fireflies.ai alternatives](https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/fireflies-ai/)
- [AI for Lead Generation & Sales Prospecting](https://zekaiwork.com/professions/ai-lead-generation-sales-automation/)

---
Live table, team cost finder and price alerts: https://zekaiwork.com/alternatives/fathom/