SR-7 vs Otter.ai

SR-7 opens like a native recorder: tap record, and that's the whole first step. What follows is one list of recordings, each carrying its own transcript, title, and summary the moment on-device processing finishes — no dashboard to configure, no workspace to join first.

Otter opens to a web dashboard built around meetings — a calendar, conversation folders, shared workspace settings — because its job is organizing recurring calls across a team, not handing you a recorder. SR-7 has no dashboard and no team view; it's built to be picked up and used in the moment.

SR-7 processes audio on-device and never uploads it; there's nothing to send, because there's no server in the loop. Otter is a cloud service — recordings are processed on AWS infrastructure in the US, and Otter's own privacy policy states it uses that data to "improve and monitor the Services, including training our proprietary AI technology on de-identified audio recordings and on transcriptions (which may contain Personal Information)."

That data is also shared with cloud providers, data labeling providers, analytics providers, and advertising partners, per the same policy. Whether that trade-off matters to you depends on what you're recording.

Otter's core job is live meetings: a bot joins Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams, transcribes in real time, and labels who said what — features on every plan, including free. SR-7 doesn't attempt any of that; it has no meeting bot and no speaker identification.

SR-7's job is turning your own recordings — voice memos, field notes, conversations you captured yourself — into a searchable markdown archive on-device, with a local MCP server so AI tools can read it directly. Otter's API is Enterprise-only; SR-7's agent access ships free with the app, on macOS.

Otter's free tier means $0 to start: 300 transcription minutes a month, a 30-minute cap per conversation, and three file imports for the life of the account. Past that, Pro and Business plans run $8.33 to $30 per user per month, billed monthly or annually, recurring for as long as you use the service.

SR-7 is $7.99 once, an introductory price that will rise later, covering iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Ongoing use of Otter beyond the free tier costs more per year than SR-7 costs one time — the trade-off is that Otter also does things SR-7 doesn't attempt, like live meeting capture and team collaboration.