Recall.ai vs Nylas Notetaker

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Platform Coverage & Integrations

Recording & Transcription

Real-Time Capabilities & Interactivity

Reliability & Bot Behavior

Data Delivery & Observability

Platform Coverage & Integrations		Nylas
Supports multiple data capture form factors Captures meetings via bot API, desktop SDK, or other capture modes.	Captures meetings via bot API, desktop SDK, or other capture modes.
Integrates with multiple video conferencing platforms Works across Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Webex, Slack, GoTo, and more.	Supported for Zoom	Only Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams
Handles signed-in bot workflows Works across Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Webex, Slack, GoTo, and more.	Bots able to sign in on Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Slack Huddles	Must grant bot access to read your emails
Supports breakout rooms Enables bots to record breakout rooms.	Supported for Zoom
Provides free calendar integration Connects to user calendars for read-only scheduling data.		Paid
Provides calendar write access Creates or modifies events on the user's calendar.
Allows for customizable bot avatar Lets teams define the bot’s avatar, logo, or video identity.	Full control over name, logo, avatar, or video
Offers customization of bot name Allows naming the bot.	Full control over name, logo, avatar, or video
Supports sending custom consent message Delivers configurable consent prompts via chat, bot speaking, etc.		Prewritten, non-configurable; delivered with significant delay
Provides robust documentation Provides clear, accurate, thorough and consistent developer documentation.	Easy-to-follow, consistent documentation with sample repos and demo videos	Documentation inconsistent with actual API behavior

Recording & Transcription		Nylas
Produces a video recording Produces a video recording (single merged track).
Produces an audio recording Produces an audio recording (single merged track).
Provides speaker-separated audio streams Produces individual audio recordings for each meeting participant.
Provides speaker-separated video streams Produces individual video recordings for each meeting participant.
Supports 100% Perfect Diarization Captures each speaker on their own track with no loss during overlap.		Overlapping speech is merged so diarization isn’t accurate
Identifies speakers accurately Associates speech with the correct participant names and emails		Can confuse one speaker as multiple speakers. No speaker names for Zoom
Produces clean video output Generates video without UI of the meeting platform.		Video shows meeting platform UI, modals and popups
Generates post-meeting transcription Creates transcripts after meetings.
Enables flexible transcription method and provider choice Allows teams to select from multiple transcription engines.	Use built-in Recall Transcription, other supported providers, scrape captions, or transcribe using your own models
Accepts custom vocabulary Improves transcript accuracy using user-supplied domain terms and names.
Handles multiple languages Transcribes meetings in a variety of languages.

Real-Time Capabilities & Interactivity		Nylas
Summarizes meetings Generates high-level meeting summaries programmatically.	Developers can pass data to any LLM of your choosing	Simple toggle to enable. No configurability. Long prompts not allowed
Extracts action items Programmatically produces action-item lists based on meeting content	Developers can pass data to any LLM of your choosing	Simple toggle to enable. No configurability. Long prompts not allowed
Streams real-time audio Delivers audio in real time via WebSockets or webhooks.	WebSocket, webhook, and RTMP
Streams real-time video Delivers video in real time via WebSockets, webhooks, or RTMP.	WebSocket, webhook, and RTMP
Delivers real-time participant events Streams event signals such as join, leave, mute, unmute, and other events.	WebSocket, webhook, and RTMP
Delivers real-time chat messages Streams chat messages as they occur in the meeting.	WebSocket, webhook, and RTMP
Enables interactive agents Allows bots to speak, display media, send chat messages, and respond dynamically in meetings.	Meeting bot form factor supports AI Agents

Reliability & Bot Behavior		Nylas
Ensures platform reliability Joins meetings consistently across supported platforms.		Frequent connection failures on certain platforms
Enables auto-leave Lets bots exit calls automatically based on developer logic.
Allows for pausing and resuming recording Enables temporary stopping and restarting of recording.
Dedupes bots Prevents accidental bot duplication from rapid or repeated requests.
Detects other bots Recognizes bot participants through behavioral and event cues.	Detects other bots based on user names, events, and silence	Detects other bots based on participant silence
Enables configurable waiting room timeout Allows developers to set how long a bot waits in the lobby.	Custom control of bot waiting times	Unconfigurable. All bots wait 10 minutes after being sent.
Supports configurable leave-call timeout Lets teams specify how long bots remain in silent or empty calls.	Only leaves when instructed, no humans are left in the call, or call ends	Exits automatically after ~5 minutes of silence, even when participants remain in the call
Joins meetings immediately Connects bots to meetings in under ten seconds.		Average 45 seconds on Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams

Data Delivery & Observability		Nylas
Supports flexible data delivery Provides data through REST API, webhooks, or WebSockets.	Also supports WebSockets and RTMP
Exposes participant event data Captures participant events events logged after the meeting has ended.	Track join, leave, mute, unmute, and screen share events
Delivers logs Exposes logs and debug information for troubleshooting.
Offers configurable data retention Gives teams control over data-retention duration.	Infinite, custom, or zero data retention	14 days. No ability to delete before or store on platform after.

Why others switched from Nylas to Recall.ai

“When testing with Nylas we realized that [speaker] diarization didn’t always provide names and sometimes misattributed speech from one participant to another. On Zoom, we never got participant names at all, just Speaker A, B, C, etc.”

Jorgen Helmers-Olsen

Co-founder, Articonsult

”We switched from Nylas to Recall.ai because Nylas lacked stability, didn’t have logs to help us debug, and was slow to support our team. Recall.ai, by contrast, is far more stable, transparent, and developer-friendly, making it much easier to build, maintain, and scale.”

Sophia Holt

“Displaying a professional video is key to our product. Recall.ai reliably provides us with clean, raw video across every platform. In contrast, Nylas Notetaker delivered a final video that always appeared as a screen recording of a participant’s view which included meeting UI elements and pop-ups throughout the call.”

“We needed a partner we could trust. We tried Nylas, but the developer experience was lacking. When we switched over [to Recall.ai] the documentation was clear, there were logs to help us debug, and the support team answered our questions quickly.”

“Currently, Nylas Notetaker is too slow to join the meeting. Recall.ai joins immediately."

Çağatay Yücelen

CEO, Firstview

How Recall.ai and Nylas Notetaker API compare

Although Recall.ai and the Nylas Notetaker API may appear similar on the surface, a closer look makes it clear that Recall.ai delivers significantly more configurability and support for both enterprises and startups.

The first major difference is platform coverage. Nylas Notetaker supports Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Zoom. Recall.ai’s Meeting Bot API supports Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Zoom, Webex, Slack Huddles, GoTo Meeting, and more.

Recall.ai is a more reliable alternative to Nylas.

When it comes to infrastructure, reliability is critical and Recall.ai greatly outperforms Nylas and all competitors. Across all scenarios tested, including ad-hoc, scheduled, and large meetings, Recall.ai achieved the highest success meeting recording rate, with fewer failures and dropouts. Developers can rely on Recall.ai to consistently capture recordings, transcripts and other meeting data.

Meeting capabilities also differ.

Nylas provides a meeting bot API, while Recall.ai provides a Meeting Bot API, a Desktop Recording SDK, and a forthcoming Mobile Recording SDK. This enables developers to embed recording functionality directly into desktop applications, expanding recording options beyond virtual meetings into hybrid and in person scenarios.

Focusing specifically on meeting bots where Recall.ai and Nylas overlap, Recall.ai provides real time data. Nylas Notetaker API provides data only after the call. Recall.ai allows you to transcribe with any model you prefer and also offers a built in option, Recall.ai Transcription. Recall.ai supports custom dictionaries that inform your chosen model of specific spellings, company terminology, and industry vocabulary in order to improve accuracy. Nylas offers a single fixed transcription option that does not support dictionaries.

Recall. ai provides perfect diarization.   

This means that even when participants talk over one another, speaker attribution remains accurate. Nylas cannot match this because it only provides mixed audio, while Recall.ai can provide mixed audio or separate streams per speaker. Additionally, Nylas only provides speaker names for Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, while Recall.ai provides speaker names for all of the supported platforms.

If you want an out-of-the-box summary or a list of action items, Nylas offers these features using an unspecified and non-configurable model with the option to pass a text prompt. Recall.ai gives you all raw data required to pass to any model you choose so that you can generate summaries, action items, speaker talk time reports, and more. Recall.ai also supports fully interactive agents.

Nylas Notetaker API does not allow meeting bots to output anything back into the live meeting, aside from a preset consent message that appears two to three minutes into the call. It also does not allow changing the visual representation of the notetaker. Recall.ai bots can output to the meeting and collect significantly more data, including transcripts, recordings, call metadata, participant events, chat, and breakout room information. Nylas provides transcripts, mixed audio and video, and limited metadata without chat, participant events, or breakout room support.

Because Nylas video is generated via tab capture, pop ups and the full meeting platform interface appear in the final recording. Recall.ai’s video recording output is clean and does not include the meeting platform interface or tab popups, and you can choose between speaker view and gallery view video recordings. This make Recall.ai a better alternative to Nylas.

Data retention and security also differ. Recall.ai offers configurable data retention options ranging from zero to infinite and is HIPAA, SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR and CCPA compliant. Nylas Notetaker stores data for fourteen days with no configurability.

Calendar integrations, but with important differences.

Both platforms offer calendar integrations, but with important differences. Recall.ai’s Calendar Integration API is free and read only. Nylas offers a paid calendar integration with read and write capabilities. Recall.ai has a 99.9% SLA and Recall.ai’s meeting recording APIs are used by thousands of startups and enterprises, including Hubspot, Monday.com, Instacart, Clickup, Rippling, and more.

There are many additional differences related to stability, configurability, edge case handling, and join time behavior where Recall.ai is the clear leader.

If you want a Meeting Bot API or Desktop Recording SDK that reliably records and transcribes meetings, supports custom media input, provides real time data for building AI agents, includes detailed logging, and offers fast and effective support, Recall.ai is the clear choice.