Loom
Otter.ai
| Feature | Loom | Otter.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free / from $12.5/mo | Free / from $16.99/mo |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.5 / 5 | 4.3 / 5 |
| Best For | remote-teams, developers, customer-success, managers, educators | remote-teams, managers, sales-teams, journalists, students |
| Founded | 2015 | 2016 |
| Screen Recording | ✓ | ✗ |
| Video Messages | ✓ | ✗ |
| Transcription | ✓ | ✗ |
| Reactions | ✓ | ✗ |
| Video Editing | ✓ | ✗ |
| Analytics | ✓ | ✗ |
| Live Transcription | ✗ | ✓ |
| Meeting Summary | ✗ | ✓ |
| Action Items | ✗ | ✓ |
| Speaker Id | ✗ | ✓ |
| Zoom Integration | ✗ | ✓ |
| Search | ✗ | ✓ |
| Highlights | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Loom Pros
- Instant async video communication
- Screen + webcam recording
- Auto-transcription and captions
- Slack and Notion integration
✗ Loom Cons
- 25-video limit on free plan
- 5-minute recording limit on free
- Requires good internet for fast uploads
✓ Otter.ai Pros
- Real-time transcription during meetings
- Joins Zoom/Teams/Meet automatically
- AI-generated action items and summaries
- Searchable transcript archive
✗ Otter.ai Cons
- Accuracy drops with accents or crosstalk
- Free tier limited to 300 minutes/month
- Occasional missed speaker attribution
The Verdict
Loom is built for remote teams and developers, with a focus on screen-recording and video-messages. Otter.ai targets remote teams and managers and leads with live-transcription and meeting-summary.
Pricing is close: Loom starts at $12.5/mo versus $16.99/mo for Otter.ai — not a deciding factor on its own.
Both offer free plans, so you can test each with your real workflow before committing to a subscription.
Feature-wise, Otter.ai offers broader built-in capabilities (7 features vs 6), while Loom takes a more focused approach — which can mean a simpler, faster onboarding experience.
Both tools are a solid fit for remote teams, managers — in those cases, the decision often comes down to workflow style and how your team prefers to organize work.
This is a genuinely close comparison. If you can, sign up for both free trials (where available) and run a one-week test with your actual team tasks before deciding.
