Transcripted vs Fathom

Why local processing matters

Fathom is a solid product for teams that want automated meeting summaries and cloud storage. But its core architecture — cloud processing — creates a trust dependency. Every meeting you record, every conversation you have, goes through Fathom's servers. That includes sensitive discussions: compensation reviews, client strategy, product roadmaps, hiring decisions.

With Transcripted, audio is processed on your Mac using Apple's Neural Engine. The files Transcripted creates live in ~/Documents/Transcripted/. They never touch a server. You can read them, move them, delete them, sync them wherever you want — and no one else can.

That's not a feature. It's an architectural guarantee.

The cost math

Fathom is $15/month per user — $180/year. Over three years that's $540 per user for meeting transcription. Transcripted is $0. It's MIT licensed, which means it's free to use, free to modify, and free to ship to your whole team. There's no paid tier being planned.

The reason it can be free: it runs on hardware you already own. The M-series Neural Engine handles the transcription pipeline faster than a cloud API and costs nothing per request.

Where Fathom is better

To be honest: Fathom has AI summaries and cloud storage. Transcripted doesn't yet. If you need automatic meeting summaries, action items, and follow-up drafts inside the app, Fathom does that today.

Fathom also has a polished, consumer-facing UI and a more established product. If you're not technical and want everything in one place without thinking about files, Fathom works.

But if you care about privacy, if you're using AI agents that need context about your meetings, if you use Obsidian, or if $15/month for transcription feels wrong — Transcripted is the answer.