HyNote vs Otter vs Fireflies vs NotebookLM: Which One Fits How You Actually Work?

HyNote and Otter can, on a laptop and a phone. Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM) can on a phone, since September 2026. Fireflies can't, because it captures meetings through a bot.

Otter records well when a bot can join a scheduled call, which is its home turf. It also offers web and mobile recording. On the free plan, transcription is capped at 30 minutes per conversation and 300 minutes per month, with only 3 lifetime audio/video file imports. Pro lifts this to 1,200 in-app recording minutes, up to 90 minutes per meeting, and 10 imports a month.

Fireflies is bot-first by design. It joins Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and similar calls as a meeting notetaker. That works for remote meetings and feels wrong for a seminar room.

Gemini Notebook, formerly NotebookLM, is document- and source-first. In September 2026 Google added an audio recorder to its mobile app for Android and iOS, for capturing lectures and recording thoughts, with recordings kept alongside a notebook's other sources. Google's announcement describes it as a mobile app feature.

HyNote records directly in the app on web and mobile, including screen audio from an online lecture or call, with no bot, up to 120 minutes per session on all plans. Output formats include .webm, .mp4, and .aac. The recording lands in the same workspace as your readings, so the lecture and the assigned PDF sit side by side when you're reviewing.

Honest answer: none of the four is perfect, and speaker labeling quality depends heavily on room noise, overlap, and setup.

HyNote labels speakers in your recordings on Plus, Unlimited, and Teams so you can tell who said what in a lecture, seminar, or interview. Otter identifies speakers out of the box, though third-party reviews describe accuracy as hit-or-miss in noisy rooms. Fireflies labels speakers too, but user reports say it often needs manual setup before names attach correctly. Google's September 2026 announcement of the Gemini Notebook recorder does not mention speaker identification.

If diarization is your single deciding feature, test the tools on your own audio. If you're a student recording seminars and group projects in person, HyNote's bot-free capture plus labeled transcripts next to your readings is the combination that matters.

Gemini Notebook is strongest when your workflow is already document- and source-first inside Google AI plans: upload or connect materials, then ask questions across them. Its new recorder lives in the mobile app, and we are not listing specific free-tier notebook or query caps here because those numbers were not stably verified on Google's public pages as of September 23, 2026.

Its gap versus HyNote has narrowed to where and how you capture: Gemini Notebook records in its mobile app, while HyNote also records in the browser, including screen audio, with high-accuracy speaker identification on Plus and above.

HyNote accepts: live recording (mic/screen, up to 120 min on all plans, output .webm/.mp4/.aac); uploaded audio (.wav, .flac, .mp3, .m4a, .webm, .mp4 and related audio types, up to 200 MB / 120 min); images (JPG, PNG, WEBP, BMP, HEIC, GIF and other image/*, up to 120 MB × 10); PDF and docs (.pdf, .docx, .txt, .md — PDF up to 50 MB / 500 pages); typed text/markdown (saved as .txt); YouTube URL import; web page URL import (PDF URLs should be imported as PDFs); and Chrome extension screenshots. Ordinary video file upload is not supported — YouTube URLs and audio/video MIME uploads for transcription are separate cases.

Otter and Fireflies aren't really playing this game. They're meeting tools with transcript archives, not multimodal research workspaces.

Otter (verified September 23, 2026 from https://otter.ai/pricing): Pro is $16.99/user/month or $8.33/user/month billed annually, with 1,200 in-app recording minutes, 10 monthly imports, up to 90 minutes per meeting, unlimited storage, and 50 AI Chat queries. Business is $30/user/month or $19.99/user/month annually, with unlimited meetings and imports, up to 4 hours per meeting, and 200 AI Chat queries. Students and teachers with a .edu email get 20% off individual Pro ($6.67/month billed annually at $79.99/year, or $13.59/month). Otter AI transcription supports English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Chinese.

Fireflies (verified September 23, 2026 from https://fireflies.ai/pricing): Pro is $18/seat/month or $10/seat/month annually (8,000 minutes storage/seat, 20 AI credits). Business is $29/seat/month or $19/seat/month annually (unlimited storage, 30 AI credits). Enterprise is $39/seat/month annual only (50 AI credits). Free storage is 400 minutes per team — not 800.

NotebookLM paid access is bundled into Google AI subscriptions (Plus, Pro, Ultra). Treat it as a document research workspace inside Google AI, not as a meeting recorder with a standalone seat price comparable to Otter or Fireflies.

HyNote paid plans (from https://hynote.ai/pricing): Pro $6.66/user/mo annual ($11.99 monthly), Plus $10.83/user/mo annual ($18.99 monthly), Unlimited $15.83/user/mo annual ($24.99 monthly). Teams $15 per seat/month billed annually ($180 per seat/year), from 2 seats. All plans support up to 120 minutes per recording session on web and mobile. High-accuracy speaker identification is on Plus and above. There is no student discount.