Mac-native meeting note-taker that listens, transcribes locally, and surfaces your own notes as talking points in real time.
OpenOats is an open source alternative to Granola, Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai, and MacWhisper. Mac-native meeting note-taker that listens, transcribes locally, and surfaces your own notes as talking points in real time. MIT licensed, 2.5k GitHub stars, no terminal required to start, and last released 2026-06-28.
Should you switch?
Use it if
People who want fully local, private meeting transcription and real-time retrieval from their own notes during a call, with no audio leaving the device.
"Until recently I was using MacWhisper (a paid app that originally used Whisper but now also supports Parakeet). But OpenOats (i) displays the transcript in real-time rather than at the end of the call, and (ii) has a simpler and less confusing UI. I've used it only for one meeting so far, and it did a good job with that one."
"I just showed my friend OpenOats for the first time and she couldn't find the button to rename a meeting. Currently every Meeting needs to be renamed, so hiding the button under "manage" might not be the best UX. [...] Thanks for OpenOats! Love the product!"
