Short answer: Otter.ai is popular but controlled from outside the EU. If you want meetings & notes with data under European jurisdiction, 4 reviewed alternatives are listed below (1 Swedish), ranked by our score, not by who pays us.
Otter.ai transcribes meetings in real time and has a free Basic plan to start with. The tool is strongest in English. The company is American and processes the data with AWS in the USA, but has a data processing agreement built into its terms of service.
Accurate transcription of English-language meetings.
Captions meetings in real time, so participants can follow along directly.
Weak in Swedish. Anyone who mainly holds meetings in Swedish should look at alternatives.
Best for: A Swedish consultant who holds client meetings in English and wants automatic notes without paying.
EU/EEAMeetings & notesFreemiumEU data storage ✓ISO 27001
German meeting assistant that records audio locally on your computer without sending a bot into the meeting, and then creates notes and summaries. All data is stored and processed within the EEA, Switzerland and the UK, and raw audio is deleted directly after transcription, which means you cannot go back and listen afterwards.
Bot-free - captures audio locally without showing up in the meeting
All data is stored and processed within the EEA, Switzerland and the UK according to the provider
Requires desktop app (Mac/Windows), does not work only in the browser
Best for: Companies that want to avoid meeting bots and keep all data in Europe.
Records and summarizes meetings. German company with storage within the EEA, but AI features may process parts of transcripts in the USA if you do not select EU as the AI region in account settings.
German company with storage within the EEA
Free tier that is enough to get started
Fewer features than Fireflies
Best for: EU companies that want to take meeting notes securely.
Check that you can export your data (the EU Data Act now gives you the right to switch cloud services with a maximum 2-month notice), set up the new tool in parallel and move gradually.
Remember: the Data Act gives you a legal right to get your data out and switch cloud services, with a maximum 2-month notice period.
Common questions
Why switch from Otter.ai?
Otter.ai is controlled from a country outside the EU. For non-sensitive use this is rarely a problem, but for customer data, personal data or the public sector a Swedish or European vendor means simpler GDPR work and no CLOUD Act exposure through ownership.
Are there Swedish alternatives to Otter.ai?
Yes, 1 of the alternatives below are Swedish. The rest are EU/EEA-based.
Are the alternatives as good?
It depends on your needs. We rank them by our overall score below. Some match Otter.ai feature for feature, others trade depth for data sovereignty. Read each review.
Ratings and labels are based on our verified data, see How we review. Some links are affiliate links; that never affects ranking.
