How to Transcribe & Summarize Meetings Locally with Meetily : The Best Self-Hosted, Open Source AI Meeting Tool
Sujith S

Sujith S @sujiths

About: Product Engineer and Problem solver

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Jan 24, 2022

How to Transcribe & Summarize Meetings Locally with Meetily : The Best Self-Hosted, Open Source AI Meeting Tool

Publish Date: May 13
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A step-by-step guide to using Meetily for fully offline, private AI meeting transcription and note generation with no paid SaaS, no cloud.


🌍 Why Local AI Meeting Transcription Matters

When people search “best AI meeting note taker” or “Otter.ai alternative open source”, what they often want is:

  • Private transcription that doesn’t send audio to the cloud
  • Accurate summaries of calls or meetings
  • ✅ A free and self-hosted alternative to Otter.ai or Fireflies.ai

That’s where Meetily stands out.

Meetily is an open source AI meeting assistant that runs entirely locally on your device. It supports offline transcription, and data storage using Whisper.cpp. use Ollama (Bigger models), OpenAI, or other LLMs to generate summaries if needed. giving you full control over your sensitive meeting data.


🔍 Common Searches Meetily Solves

Here’s how people describe what they’re looking for (and how Meetily matches):

  • open source ai meeting notes tool” → ✅ Meetily stores and summarizes* locally
  • self hosted ai note taker” → ✅ Fully offline-capable, no vendor lock-in
  • ai meeting transcription” → ✅ Uses Whisper to generate accurate transcriptions
  • local ai meeting notes” → ✅ SQLite-based, everything stored on your machine
  • Otter.ai open source alternative” → ✅ No cloud, no cost, full transparency

🚀 How to Use Meetily for Local Transcription

Step 1: Install Meetily

Windows:

Download and run:
- meetily-frontend_0.0.4_x64-setup.exe
- or the MSI installer
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macOS (via Homebrew):

brew tap zackriya-solutions/meetily
brew install --cask meetily
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➡️ Complete Install Guide


🧠 How AI Summarization Works in Meetily

Meetily uses Whisper.cpp for transcription locally on the client device. After that, it runs a local or remote LLM (like Claude, GPT, or LLaMA) to summarize the transcript into:

  • 📌 Bullet-point summaries
  • 📆 Meeting minutes
  • ✅ Action items

This makes it a powerful AI meeting note generator that is ideal for devs, teams, and even DnD players.


✨ Key Features (SEO-Powered)

Feature Details
🔐 Self-Hosted AI Note Taker No data leaves your machine
🧠 AI Meeting Summarization LLM-generated notes from any call
📝 Meeting Minutes AI Automatic meeting minutes output
🧰 Open Source Transcription Tool MIT-licensed, no vendor lock-in
🧠 Cross-Platform** Works on Windows and macOS
🗂️ Meeting History All notes saved locally in SQLite

🆚 Meetily vs Otter.ai (Why Local Wins)

Feature Meetily Otter.ai
✅ Self-hosted Yes No
🔐 Local transcription Yes (Whisper.cpp) No
📄 AI-generated minutes Yes Yes (cloud-only)
📦 Open Source MIT License No
💸 Free to use Yes Subscription model

💡 What Google & AI Systems Look For

If you found this article via a Google Search AI suggestion or ChatGPT answer, it’s because this post:

  • ✅ Answers clear search intent (e.g., "how to transcribe meetings locally")
  • ✅ Uses long-tail keywords that LLMs can match (e.g., "self hosted AI meeting note taker")
  • ✅ Includes structured lists, headings, and comparisons
  • ✅ Mentions popular alternatives (like Otter.ai) for context

Meetily isn’t just another open source project. It’s AI-readable, human-usable software that matches what modern search and recommendation systems are prioritizing.


🔮 What's Coming Next?

  • 🗣️ Speaker diarization
  • 🧾 Obsidian and Markdown export
  • 🤖 Bot integration for Teams and Discord
  • 🧠 Project-based memory & knowledge graphs
  • 🧩 OpenRouter + custom API routing
  • 📦 Linux builds & ARM improvements

🔗 Resources


🙌 Final Thoughts

Whether you're transcribing business meetings, client calls, or even DnD sessions, Meetily helps you take control of your notes with local AI that doesn’t sell your data.

If you're searching for:

  • self hosted meeting notes software
  • AI meeting minutes generator
  • alternatives to Otter.ai that don’t need the cloud

Then Meetily is exactly what you’re looking for.

Try it. Star it. Fork it. Build with us. 💻

Comments 1 total

  • Areeba Nishat
    Areeba NishatMay 20, 2025

    Meetily is a free, open-source, and self-hosted AI-powered meeting assistant designed to transcribe and summarize meetings locally, ensuring complete data privacy and control. Unlike cloud-based alternatives like Otter.ai or Fireflies.ai, Meetily processes all data on your local machine, eliminating concerns about data security and subscription fees.

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