Notta
Transcribe uploaded or live audio, summarize it, and organize a personal archive
The core loop is buildable, but a dependable replacement becomes a real weekend or multi-day project. For Notta, transcribe uploaded or live audio, summarize it, and organize a personal archive. The hard boundary is mobile apps, cloud sync, language coverage, meeting bots, and exports, plus capture reliability, integrations, and collaboration.
Build verification: not recorded. How we judge buildability
What you give up
- mobile apps, cloud sync, language coverage, meeting bots, and exports
- calendar auto-join
- reliable speaker diarization
- mobile capture
- team search and sharing
Why people still pay
People still pay for Notta because a meeting tool must capture every call without surprising anyone, then make the result searchable and shareable across a team. The recurring cost buys audio permissions, model updates, calendar APIs, storage, speaker correction, and sync, not just the visible interface.
Your build guide
The stack, security requirements, and agent rules for a focused replacement.
Before you start
- Runtime and tools: Python, FastAPI, SQLite, FFmpeg and a local faster-whisper worker with a React transcript editor.
- Before starting: An installed speech model, adequate local disk space and a recording made with participant permission; any optional hosted model needs a separately disclosed API key.
Use these project rules and optional skill references alongside the prompt. Review each skill before adding it to your agent; the AGENTS.md export includes the same guidance.
Project rule — domain: Store Recording, Segment, SpeakerLabel, Correction and ExportRevision; exported captions use valid ordered time ranges and retain edits independently of speech reruns.
Project rule — scope and recovery: Transcription and translation are different operations. Unsupported languages, silence and decoding failures stay visible; no universal diarization accuracy or automated meeting-bot claim.
Project rule — acceptance: Correct a repeated speaker label and an overlapping timestamp; show the timeline conflict before subtitle export and preserve both corrections on reopening.
Project rule — delivery: document real setup commands and permissions; do not claim a build, accuracy level, performance result or security certification that has not been demonstrated.
Recommended skill: modern-python — structure the Python worker or explicitly optional read-only utility with pinned dependencies, typed boundaries and clear failure handling. Follow the maintainer's installation instructions and match its requirements to the chosen runtime.
Recommended skill: web-design-guidelines — review keyboard access, focus, validation, error recovery and the readable work/review interface or HTML report. Follow the maintainer's installation instructions and match its requirements to the chosen runtime.
Implementation plan
Phase 1
Pin the working slice and create its example input: Import an audio recording, edit a timecoded transcript, assign speakers manually and export text, subtitle files and a reviewed summary. Confirm setup: An installed speech model, adequate local disk space and a recording made with participant permission; any optional hosted model needs a separately disclosed API key.
Phase 2
Implement persistence and write-time invariants before decorating the UI: Store Recording, Segment, SpeakerLabel, Correction and ExportRevision; exported captions use valid ordered time ranges and retain edits independently of speech reruns.
Phase 3
Connect the working view to real saved state. Keep original timing alongside corrected text. Speech recognition does not itself establish speaker identity; permit manual speaker labels. Show undecodable audio and uncertain passages without inventing words.
Phase 4
Expose the app-specific limits and recovery path in context: Transcription and translation are different operations. Unsupported languages, silence and decoding failures stay visible; no universal diarization accuracy or automated meeting-bot claim.
Phase 5
Walk through this concrete acceptance case and preserve its exported evidence: Correct a repeated speaker label and an overlapping timestamp; show the timeline conflict before subtitle export and preserve both corrections on reopening. Finish the README and backup/restore instructions; report unfinished capabilities explicitly.
Build the following focused alternative to Notta. This is a deliberately limited personal or small-team substitute, not parity with the paid service. WORKING SLICE Import an audio recording, edit a timecoded transcript, assign speakers manually and export text, subtitle files and a reviewed summary. SETUP AND ARCHITECTURE Use Python, FastAPI, SQLite, FFmpeg and a local faster-whisper worker with a React transcript editor. Prerequisites: An installed speech model, adequate local disk space and a recording made with participant permission; any optional hosted model needs a separately disclosed API key. Before integrating anything, record actual versions and permissions, plus model files or provider limits only where used, in the README; make unavailable dependencies visible rather than simulating success. DOMAIN MODEL AND INVARIANTS Store Recording, Segment, SpeakerLabel, Correction and ExportRevision; exported captions use valid ordered time ranges and retain edits independently of speech reruns. IMPLEMENTATION CONTRACT Keep original timing alongside corrected text. Speech recognition does not itself establish speaker identity; permit manual speaker labels. Show undecodable audio and uncertain passages without inventing words. Provide an input/setup view, the main work view, and a review/export view appropriate to this workflow. Preserve the last saved state if a job or save fails. Include empty, loading, permission-denied, partial and retryable-error states. Log identifiers and error categories without secret values or unnecessary private content. APP-SPECIFIC BOUNDARY AND RECOVERY Transcription and translation are different operations. Unsupported languages, silence and decoding failures stay visible; no universal diarization accuracy or automated meeting-bot claim. ACCEPTANCE SCENARIO Correct a repeated speaker label and an overlapping timestamp; show the timeline conflict before subtitle export and preserve both corrections on reopening. Also reopen the app after an interrupted operation, confirm the saved record/export remains inspectable, and document the recovery action. These are implementation acceptance requirements, not a claim that this guide has been tested. DELIVERY Deliver a runnable repository with migrations or project-format versioning, a non-sensitive example, environment/permission setup, the exact manual acceptance steps, and a backup/export-and-restore walkthrough. Implement the working slice before optional integrations; list any deferred paid-product capabilities honestly. Do not add capabilities outside the working slice just to resemble the original product. PROJECT RULES FOR AGENTS.md Keep the domain invariants above executable at the write boundary. Propose scope changes before adding providers or permissions. Never fabricate source evidence, publish results, identity matches or successful delivery. Preserve user originals and require an explicit confirmation for destructive changes or external publication.
$ open in your agent (prompt prefilled, you press enter), copy the prompt or copy or download AGENTS.md · generated from this app's build plan
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Alternatives to building your own
all 6 free alternatives to Notta →· no votes, no pay-to-list · just what's real
Notta pricing
| plan | monthly | annual (per mo) | what you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| free | $0/user | $0/user | 1 seat; 120 transcription minutes/month; 3 minutes per recording; 50 uploads, 10 AI summaries, 1,000 Brain credits, 4 bilingual uses, and 2 monolingual translation uses per month. |
| pro | — | $8.17/user | 1 seat; 1,800 transcription minutes/month; 5 hours per recording; 100 uploads, 100 AI summaries, 1,000 Brain credits, and 200 vocabulary terms per month/account.Annual equivalent verified; monthly numeric price was not exposed by the live rendered page. |
| business | — | $16.67/user | Unlimited transcription; 5 hours per recording; 200 uploads, 200 AI summaries, 1,000 Brain credits, and 1,000 vocabulary terms per account/month.Annual equivalent verified; monthly numeric price was not exposed by the live rendered page. |
| enterprise | — | — | Starts at 51 seats; customized transcription; 5 hours per recording; unlimited uploads, AI summaries, and vocabulary.Contact sales. |
| monolingual translation add-on | $10/workspace | — | Up to 100 translation uses per account/month on Pro or Business; unlimited on Enterprise.Monthly price verified; annual-billing equivalent was not exposed. |
| bilingual transcription & translation add-on | $15/workspace | — | Up to 200 uses per account/month on Pro or Business; unlimited on Enterprise.Monthly price verified; annual-billing equivalent was not exposed. |
| notta brain add-on | — | — | 8,000 AI credits per month.Public numeric price was not exposed. |
free tier1 seat; 120 minutes/month; 3 minutes per recording; 50 uploads, 10 AI summaries, 1,000 Brain credits, 4 bilingual uses, and 2 monolingual translation uses per month.
billingmonthly + annual (annual advertised 40% off); 7-day Business trial
hidden costsTranscription minutes do not carry over. On downgrade, old transcripts remain stored but a Free user can view only the first 3 minutes. Translation and Brain capacity above the included quotas require separately priced add-ons.
pricing sources checked 2026-08-14 · pricing source ↗
Questions about Notta
Can you build your own Notta with AI?
Partly. The core loop is buildable, but a dependable replacement becomes a real weekend or multi-day project. For Notta, transcribe uploaded or live audio, summarize it, and organize a personal archive. The hard boundary is mobile apps, cloud sync, language coverage, meeting bots, and exports, plus capture reliability, integrations, and collaboration.
What does the Notta build prompt cover?
The prompt starts with this scope: Import an audio recording, edit a timecoded transcript, assign speakers manually and export text, subtitle files and a reviewed summary. Full-product capabilities excluded from the comparison include: mobile apps, cloud sync, language coverage, meeting bots, and exports; calendar auto-join; reliable speaker diarization. Follow the implementation plan and its prerequisites before expanding the build.
How do I use the prompt, AGENTS.md and agent skills?
Start with the Notta prerequisites and stack, then copy the prompt into your coding agent. Save the project rules as AGENTS.md in the project root. Linked skills are optional packages or source instructions for specific tasks; review their current contents and install only those matching the chosen stack. A skill does not supply API credentials or verify the finished app.
How long will this Notta project take?
The catalogue estimate is multi-day for the limited scope. Setup, integration approvals, debugging, deployment and ongoing maintenance can add time. This is an estimate, not a delivery guarantee.
What would I give up by replacing Notta?
mobile apps, cloud sync, language coverage, meeting bots, and exports; calendar auto-join; reliable speaker diarization; mobile capture; team search and sharing. People still pay for Notta because a meeting tool must capture every call without surprising anyone, then make the result searchable and shareable across a team. The recurring cost buys audio permissions, model updates, calendar APIs, storage, speaker correction, and sync, not just the visible interface.
What price is this guide comparing against?
The recorded Pro plan is $8.17/mo per seat (annual billing, per user per month), checked 2026-08-14. Check the linked pricing source before buying. Building your own also has hosting, API and maintenance costs; the recorded amount is not a guaranteed saving.
What can I use instead of building Notta?
Meetily: Local live transcription, imported recordings and summaries for Mac and Windows. Buzz: Offline file and live transcription with speaker labels, search, exports and an optional summary plugin. Vibe: A desktop transcriber with file batches, live capture, translation and optional local summaries; collaboration is now a folder. Compare all listed options at https://howtovibecodeit.dev/notta/alternatives. Check each option's license, hosting needs and feature limits.