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Otter is for meetings. Amanu is for the meeting with yourself.
Otter built a fantastic note-taker for rooms with other people in them. Amanu is for the conversations you have with yourself, on a walk, in the car, between things.
Who Otter is for
Anyone who lives in Zoom, Meet, or Teams. OtterPilot drops into a meeting, transcribes it, and emails you the summary. If your job is meetings, that's a real product.
Journalists, researchers, sales teams.
Who Amanu is for
People without a meeting to record. The thoughts that arrive when you're alone — on a walk, on the school run, mid-shower. Amanu is the meeting with yourself. Otter doesn't pretend to do that.
How they compare, side by side
| What you need | Amanu | Otter |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Solo capture, one voice | Multi-speaker meetings |
| Where audio comes from | You speaking, on iPhone | Zoom/Meet/Teams call audio |
| What you get back | Reminder, event, note, person mention — routed to iOS apps | Meeting transcript, summary, action items in email |
| iOS Lock Screen + Action Button | First-class | Mobile app exists; not optimised for solo on-the-go capture |
| Talk-back / continuous duplex | Yes | No (one-way transcription) |
| Training on user data | Never | Otter trains on de-identified data per their May 2025 policy |
Where Amanu wins
Solo capture is the whole product, not a side feature. The orb, the Lock Screen widget, the Action Button — all built for one person, one thought, one second to capture it.
Captures route into Apple Reminders and Calendar. Otter gives you transcripts; you still have to act on them.
Privacy is a first-class page, not an FAQ entry. We name every third-party processor. We confirm no training. The audio leg of talk-back routes through our own LiveKit, not a vendor we don't control.
Where Otter wins
Multi-speaker diarisation in a noisy meeting. We don't do that — we're built for one voice.
Calendar integrations to auto-join your calls and start recording. If you need a bot in your Zoom, Otter is what you want.
The honest call
Use Otter for meetings. Use Amanu for everything you'd otherwise lose to Voice Memos.
They aren't the same product. Anyone selling them as alternatives is wrong about both.
Common questions
Can Amanu transcribe a Zoom meeting?
No. Amanu is built for solo capture — one voice, on your iPhone, in the moment. If you need a bot to join a multi-person Zoom call and produce a transcript with attributed speakers, Otter is the right tool. They are different products solving different problems.
Why is privacy a meaningful difference?
Otter explicitly states they train on de-identified user data. Amanu does not train on any user data, ever, and discloses every third-party processor (Anthropic for triage, OpenAI Realtime for talk-back, our own LiveKit for audio transport) on a consent screen before your first capture.
Are they really alternatives?
Only at a search-engine level — they share none of the user, none of the use case, and very little of the underlying tech. Otter belongs to your work calendar; Amanu belongs to your walks home.