# Shadow vs trnscrb

Shadow records 17,796 monthly visits with -4.4% month-over-month growth and Freemium pricing. trnscrb records 0 monthly visits with 0% growth and Free pricing.

| Metric | [Shadow](https://openaitools.app/tool/shadow) | [trnscrb](https://openaitools.app/tool/trnscrb) |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| Website URL | https://www.shadow.do | https://trnscrb.com |
| Categories | AI Meeting Assistant, AI Transcription, AI Note Taker, AI Summarizer | AI Meeting Assistant, AI Transcription, AI Transcriber, AI Speech-to-Text |
| Pricing Model | Freemium | Free |
| Monthly Visits | 17,796 | 0 |
| MoM Growth Rate | -4.4% | 0% |
| Primary Market | United States | Global |
| Direct Visits | 7,167 | 0 |
| Review Score | 4.3 | 4.7 |
| Saved Count | 1 | 1 |
| Supported Platforms | Website | Website |

## Shadow

Shadow starts from a complaint many knowledge workers share about meeting assistants: the bot that joins your call, the note-taker that locks your history behind a subscription, and the data that leaves your machine for someone else's servers. Shadow's answer is a native Mac app that operates entirely in the background. It has no bot that joins the meeting, auto-detects when a call begins, records and transcribes it locally, and stops on its own when the call ends. Speaker identification is done in real time, so transcripts arrive labelled with who said what.

The output is deliberately portable. Every meeting is written to your Mac as Markdown — transcripts, notes, and Skill results — with every call and every person linked into a knowledge base. You can open the folder as an Obsidian vault, sync it with iCloud Drive or Google Drive, search it with Spotlight, or point any AI agent at it. Shadow emphasises that there is a built-in advantage: because agents read the raw files rather than a connector's filtered view, tools like Claude, Codex, or OpenClaw get the complete context.

Between calls, Shadow is more than a note-taker. Press a keyboard shortcut on any screen and it can see what you're looking at, hear what you say, or read selected text, then run an Action Skill to produce an email, a set of notes, or code. Skills are just prompts you can edit or write from scratch, and a webhook can forward results to Zapier, n8n, or Make. The privacy stance is equally concrete: transcription is local, audio does not leave the device, meeting content is never used for model training, and you choose which Skills are allowed to call AI at all.

**Pricing & Plans:** Shadow is free to start, and the developer's stated policy is that every meeting is saved to your Mac as Markdown with no history limit on any plan — you keep the files even if you stop paying. For current paid tiers, check the pricing page inside the app.

- **Bot-free auto recording:** Shadow detects when a call starts, records automatically, and stops at the end — no bot in the meeting, nothing to remember to press.
- **On-device transcription:** Transcription runs on your Mac, with real-time speaker identification so you always know who said what.
- **Markdown you own:** Every call is saved as a clean .md file locally, openable as an Obsidian vault, backed up with iCloud or Drive, or searchable by Spotlight.
- **Meeting and Action Skills:** Run prompts on a completed call (notes, BANT, follow-ups, summaries) plus shortcut-driven actions on your screen between meetings.
- **Webhooks and automation:** A webhook pushes transcripts and Skill results into Zapier, n8n, or Make so meetings feed your existing workflows.

**Strengths:** No bot joins your call, so meetings stay natural; Local, on-device transcription with no history limits; Meetings stored as portable Markdown that works with Obsidian and AI agents; Flexible Skills you can edit or write from scratch

**Limitations:** Mac-only — there is no Windows or web app; Local-first storage means you manage your own folder, sync, and backups; By design it records without a bot, so you are responsible for getting consent from other participants; Skill output quality still depends on prompt craft, though Skills ship with sensible defaults

[Profile (Markdown)](https://openaitools.app/tool/shadow.md)

## trnscrb

trnscrb is a free and open-source macOS tool built for people who want meeting notes without sending their conversations to a cloud service. It lives in the menu bar and watches for the signs of a live meeting — your microphone becoming active for a few seconds while Google Meet, Zoom, Slack Huddle, Microsoft Teams, or FaceTime is running. When both conditions are met it starts capturing audio locally, either just your microphone or your mic plus system audio through the free BlackHole virtual driver.

Once the call ends, the audio is transcribed on device with the Whisper small model accelerated by Apple Silicon Metal, so no internet connection is required and no recording is uploaded anywhere. Audio is deleted after transcription. Output is deliberately simple: plain .txt files written to your ~/meeting-notes/ folder, with no database and no proprietary format.

The clever part is the Claude Desktop integration. trnscrb registers a set of MCP tools that let Claude start and stop recordings, check recording status, pull the latest or a specific transcript, read your current calendar event, and search across meetings. That turns your local transcript folder into a queryable memory — you can ask what your action items were, what a colleague committed to, or how often a topic has come up. Speaker labels require a free HuggingFace account; optional summarisation and action-item extraction require running the enrich command, which is the only step that sends transcript text to an API.

**Pricing & Plans:** trnscrb is free and MIT-licensed; the project accepts optional donations via Buy Me a Coffee. There are no paid plans or seat licences.

- **Automatic meeting detection:** Watches for microphone activity combined with a running meeting app (Google Meet, Zoom, Slack Huddle, Teams, FaceTime) and starts recording on its own, including browser-based calls.
- **Whisper transcription on device:** Runs the Whisper small model locally with Apple Silicon Metal acceleration, so transcription works offline and audio never leaves the Mac.
- **Claude Desktop MCP toolset:** Exposes eight MCP tools — start/stop recording, status, list and read transcripts, calendar context, and enrichment — so Claude can control recordings and search your meeting history.
- **Plain text, portable output:** Transcripts are saved as .txt files in ~/meeting-notes/ with no database or lock-in, so you can grep, sync, or archive them however you like.
- **One-command setup:** Homebrew, pip, or uv installs the tool, then a single install command wires up BlackHole, the Whisper model, HuggingFace token, Claude Desktop MCP config, and launch-at-login.

**Strengths:** Fully offline recording and transcription, with local Whisper on Apple Silicon; Free and MIT-licensed, with no accounts, subscriptions, or seat limits; Claude Desktop MCP integration turns transcripts into a queryable knowledge base; Zero lock-in: plain .txt files you own and can process with any tool

**Limitations:** macOS only, and audio-quality plus speed depend on having Apple Silicon; System-audio capture requires installing the third-party BlackHole driver; Speaker labels need a HuggingFace account, and summarisation sends text to the Claude API

[Profile (Markdown)](https://openaitools.app/tool/trnscrb.md)

## Frequently Asked Questions

### How do Shadow and trnscrb compare in monthly traffic?

Shadow has 17,796 monthly visits, while trnscrb has 0. Traffic estimates describe audience size, not product quality.

### How do their growth rates compare?

Shadow has a month-over-month growth rate of -4.4%; trnscrb has 0%.

### How does pricing compare?

Shadow: Freemium. Shadow is free to start, and the developer's stated policy is that every meeting is saved to your Mac as Markdown with no history limit on any plan — you keep the files even if you stop paying. For current paid tiers, check the pricing page inside the app. trnscrb: Free. trnscrb is free and MIT-licensed; the project accepts optional donations via Buy Me a Coffee. There are no paid plans or seat licences.

## Alternatives

| # | Tool Name | Monthly Visits | MoM Growth Rate | Pricing Model | Summary | Profile (Markdown) |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 1 | [TurboScribe](https://openaitools.app/tool/turboscribe-ai) | 27,661,771 | +2.1% | Freemium | Unlimited AI transcription of audio and video in 98+ languages | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/turboscribe-ai.md) |
| 2 | [Otter AI](https://openaitools.app/tool/otter-ai) | 7,360,981 | +9.6% | Freemium | AI meeting agent that transcribes, summarises, and turns every conversation into searchable knowledge | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/otter-ai.md) |
| 3 | [Fathom](https://openaitools.app/tool/fathom-2-0) | 5,620,385 | +0.2% | Freemium, Free Trial | AI notetaker that records, transcribes and summarizes meetings — bot-free | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/fathom-2-0.md) |
| 4 | [Fireflies.ai](https://openaitools.app/tool/fireflies-ai) | 4,411,502 | +3% | Freemium | AI teammate that records, transcribes and summarizes every meeting | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/fireflies-ai.md) |
| 5 | [Read Speaker Coach](https://openaitools.app/tool/read-speaker-coach) | 4,071,302 | -4.8% | Freemium, Paid | Meeting summaries, transcripts, and AI search that turn meetings into outcomes | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/read-speaker-coach.md) |
| 6 | [OpenWhispr](https://openaitools.app/tool/openwhispr) | 291,756 | -13.3% | Free | Free open-source dictation that runs speech-to-text on your own machine | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/openwhispr.md) |
| 7 | [Noota](https://openaitools.app/tool/noota) | 283,526 | +3.3% | Freemium, Paid, Contact for Pricing | Bot-free AI meeting assistant hosted in Europe | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/noota.md) |
| 8 | [Circleback](https://openaitools.app/tool/circleback) | 272,906 | +12.5% | Free Trial | AI notetaker and company brain that turns every meeting into searchable knowledge | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/circleback.md) |
| 9 | [Fellow](https://openaitools.app/tool/fellow) | 188,722 | -5% | Contact for Pricing | The secure AI meeting notetaker built for teams that cannot get privacy wrong | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/fellow.md) |
| 10 | [Bubbles](https://openaitools.app/tool/bubbles) | 148,424 | +2% | Freemium, Free Trial | Always-on AI meeting notetaker with a self-erasing screen replay | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/bubbles.md) |

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Source: https://openaitools.app/compare/shadow-vs-trnscrb

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