What is the best Otter alternative for an iPhone?

It depends on why you are replacing it. If you want the same thing without the meeting features, another cloud service is the closest match and the switch will feel like nothing changed. If you are replacing it because the recording should not be uploaded at all, then you want an on-device transcriber and you should expect to give up sharing, speaker labels and a web app in exchange.

Is there a transcription app that works without internet?

Yes — any app whose speech model runs on the device rather than on a server, which includes Kaseta and a handful of others. The way to confirm it for any candidate is the same: turn on airplane mode and try to transcribe. Cloud apps fail immediately or queue the recording for later upload; an on-device one just works.

Can I just use Apple Voice Memos?

Often, yes, and it costs nothing. It records well, it is already on the phone, and recent versions can produce a transcript. What it is not is private by default — recordings sync through iCloud unless you turn that off — and it is not built around transcription, so language coverage and export are thinner than a dedicated app's.

Are free web transcription sites a reasonable option?

For an ordinary note, usually. The thing to notice is that uploading a file to a website is a disclosure: the recording is now on someone else's machine under whatever terms you did not read. That is fine for a shopping list and a bad idea for a patient, a client or a source.

How can I tell whether an app is sending my recordings anywhere?

Two checks, both cheap. Airplane mode: if it transcribes with every radio off, nothing was sent for that transcript. And look for an account — a service that stores your transcripts needs to know whose they are, so a required sign-up is a reliable sign that the audio or the text is leaving the phone.

Alternatives for turning a recording into text

Most comparisons of transcription tools rank them on accuracy, which is the least useful axis: everything in this category is built on a similar generation of speech models, and for clear audio they all produce a usable transcript. The question that actually changes your answer is simpler.

Does the tool send your recording somewhere, and do you mind?

Answer that and the field sorts itself into five groups.

1. Cloud transcription services

Otter, Notta and the rest of the category. You record or upload, the audio is processed on the company’s servers, the transcript lives in your account.

Good at: collaboration, shared archives, searching across everything you have ever captured, speaker labels, assistants that join meetings for you, working from a browser on any machine.

The trade: the recording is now with a third party, and the pricing is a subscription measured in minutes, because minutes genuinely cost the vendor money.

We keep a page each on the two people search for by name: Kaseta vs Otter and Kaseta vs Notta.

2. Apple Voice Memos

Already on the phone, free, and perfectly good at recording.

Good at: being there, costing nothing, and handling the everyday case without a decision.

The trade: recordings sync through iCloud by default, so “it stays on my phone” is not the right description unless you have turned that off. It is a recorder that gained transcription rather than a transcription tool, so language coverage and the export options are narrower than a dedicated app’s.

3. On-device transcription apps

The group Kaseta belongs to. The speech model ships inside the app and runs on the phone’s own processor.

Good at: working with the network off, sending nothing, needing no account, and being sellable as a one-time purchase — there is no per-user server bill to fund.

The trade: no shared workspace, no web access, no bot in your meetings, and the archive is on one device, so your backup is your safety net. Kaseta specifically transcribes 99 languages and does not label speakers today.

S6Transcribing in airplane mode

Airplane-mode icon visible in the status bar
Transcript arriving with the radios off
No sign-in, no sync indicator anywhere on screen

4. Web converters — upload a file, get text back

The results at the top of a search for converting an audio file. Drag a file in, wait, copy the text.

Good at: one-off jobs, on any device, with nothing installed.

The trade: the upload is the whole product, and it is a disclosure. Fine for a lecture you already published; not for anything confidential. Our own guide to getting text out of an .m4a file covers this route honestly, including when it is the sensible one.

5. Dedicated recording hardware with a cloud behind it

Plaud is the name people search here. It is not an app: it is a recorder you buy, which captures audio offline to its own memory and then sends that audio to the company’s cloud for transcription and AI processing when it syncs with your phone. A subscription pays for that half.

Good at: capture. Dedicated microphones, days of battery, memory that is not your phone’s, and a device you can clip on or set down without holding a phone out at the table. The cloud behind it comes with a compliance story — audits and certifications — that an indie app does not have.

The trade: two purchases instead of one, a device to carry and charge, and the recording still goes to a company’s servers to become text, which is the same disclosure the first group involves. The full version of this one, including where they are better than us, is on the Plaud page.

A note on names, because searching is confusing

Several app names in this category are the ordinary word for the thing. Diktafon is simply the word for a dictation recorder across Slavic and Scandinavian languages, and transcribe is the verb for the entire category — so a search for either returns a mixture of unrelated products, generic listings and, in one case, a Norwegian university. If a name sounds like the category itself, search for what you want the app to do instead, and check the two things that matter: whether it needs an account, and whether it works in airplane mode.

Kaseta vs cloud transcription

Feature comparison of Kaseta, cloud transcription services and Apple Voice Memos
	Kaseta	Otter / Notta	Voice Memos
Works offline	✓	✗	Partial
Languages	99	Varies by service	Limited
What the app sends	Nothing	Your recording, to the service	Your recording, to your iCloud
Limits	Per recording: 5 min free, 3 h in Pro	Monthly minutes	None
File export	✓ in Pro	✓	Audio only
Price	€39.99 once	Subscription	Free

Competitor data checked on 2026-08-16

When a cloud service is the right answer

Worth saying plainly on a page published by an on-device app:

Your employer already approved one. An approved tool beats a technically safer unapproved one.
The work is shared. Transcripts other people open, comment on and search — that is what a server is for.
You need calls captured while you are elsewhere. No app on your phone can attend a meeting you are not in.
You are not on an iPhone. Kaseta is an iPhone app, and that rules it out before any of the rest matters.

When the on-device answer is the only one that works

For some readers this is not a preference. Doctors, lawyers, therapists, journalists protecting a source, and anyone whose employer blocks cloud tools are not choosing on features — the upload disqualifies the entire first group. Those cases have their own pages: for doctors and for no-cloud workplaces.