The short version
Fathom is one of the best free AI meeting notetakers on the market, and for sales and internal calls it's hard to beat on price. The catch for recruiters is the same as every cloud notetaker: a Fathom bot joins the meeting, and the recording plus transcript are processed and stored in Fathom's cloud. For a candidate interview — especially under EU/UK rules or an enterprise client's data policy — both of those are friction. HireScribe takes the opposite approach: nothing joins the call, and the audio, transcript, and summary never leave your laptop. You trade Fathom's live collaboration and integrations for privacy you can explain in one sentence.
Feature-by-feature
| Feature | Fathom | HireScribe | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free tier; paid from ~$15/mo | $79 one-time (record + transcribe free) | |
| Data processing | Fathom cloud (US) | Your laptop, end to end | |
| Meeting bot | Fathom notetaker joins the call | No bot. You record on your side. | |
| Works offline | No (cloud-dependent) | Yes, after install | |
| Live recording highlights | Yes, clip during the call | Post-call processing | |
| CRM / integrations | Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack | ATS-ready JSON/CSV export | |
| Recruiter summary templates | Generic meeting summaries | Technical, behavioral, exec, phone screen | |
| Speaker diarization | Yes (cloud) | Yes, on-device via pyannote | |
| GDPR posture | Cloud DPA, US data residency | Audio never leaves your device | |
| ATS-ready exports | Via integrations | Native JSON, CSV, Markdown, PDF |
Comparison based on each vendor's publicly documented features as of 2026. Capabilities evolve. Verify the specifics that matter most to your workflow.
Where Fathom wins
- Genuinely useful free tier with unlimited recordings for many users.
- Live highlights and clips you can mark during the call.
- Clean CRM integrations into Salesforce and HubSpot for sales workflows.
- Auto-joins scheduled calls so you never forget to hit record.
Where HireScribe wins
- No bot appears on the candidate's screen. Nothing to explain in the first 30 seconds.
- Audio and transcripts stay on your laptop, so there's no cloud DPA to negotiate.
- Recruiter-specific summaries instead of generic meeting notes.
- ATS-ready JSON and CSV built for Bullhorn, Greenhouse, and Lever.
- One-time price with no per-seat math as your team grows.
- Works offline — on a flight, in a hotel, on a locked-down client network.
Switching from Fathom to HireScribe for interviews
- 1Keep Fathom for internal and sales calls if you like it — they solve different problems.
- 2Turn off Fathom's calendar auto-join for interview events so the bot stops appearing.
- 3Install HireScribe and start a local recording before each candidate call.
- 4Pick a summary template that matches your ATS scorecard format.
- 5Export any past Fathom interview recordings you want to keep before you rely on HireScribe.