Screenpipe vs Fathom — Meeting Tool vs Full Screen Memory

Fathom is a popular AI meeting assistant. It joins your Zoom, Google Meet, or Teams call, records the audio, transcribes it, and generates summaries with action items. For meeting-heavy workflows — especially sales teams — it works well.

Screenpipe does something fundamentally different. It captures your entire screen and audio 24/7, stores everything locally, and lets you search or query any moment from your workday. Meetings are captured automatically, but so is everything else.

Here's how they compare.

Side-by-Side

	Screenpipe	Fathom
What it captures	Screen text + all audio 24/7	Meeting audio only
Screen recording	✅ All monitors, all apps	❌ None
Audio	System + mic, always-on	Meeting audio only (Zoom, Meet, Teams)
Data storage	100% local on your device	Cloud (Fathom's servers)
Open source	✅ MIT license	❌ Proprietary
Works offline	✅	❌
AI model	Any (Claude, GPT, Ollama, local models)	Fathom's built-in AI only
Developer API	Full REST API + MCP server	REST API (TypeScript/Python SDKs)
CRM integration	Via custom pipes (buildable)	Native Salesforce + HubSpot
Platforms	Mac, Windows, Linux	Zoom, Meet, Teams (web dashboard)
Price	$400 lifetime	~$19–24/mo per user

What Fathom Does Well

Fathom is purpose-built for meetings, and within that scope it's polished:

Auto-join calls — connects to your calendar and joins Zoom/Meet/Teams automatically
Speaker identification — attributes quotes to the right person
AI summaries — generates structured notes with action items, decisions, and key topics
Clip sharing — highlight and share specific moments from a call
CRM sync — one-click push of meeting notes to Salesforce or HubSpot records

For sales teams running 8+ calls a day, the CRM integration alone can save hours of manual note entry.

Where Fathom Falls Short

Meetings Only

Fathom records scheduled video calls on three platforms. Nothing else. Your screen activity, Slack conversations, research sessions, emails, code reviews, and browsing — none of it exists to Fathom.

Meetings account for 10–20% of a knowledge worker's day. Fathom captures that slice and ignores the rest.

No Screen Content

When someone shares a spreadsheet during a call and says "look at row 14," Fathom transcribes the words but has no idea what row 14 contains. Shared slides, URLs dropped in chat, code shown on screen — Fathom misses all of it because it records audio only.

Cloud-Dependent

Every recording and transcript goes to Fathom's servers. You can't audit the code, you can't run it offline, and you can't keep data on your own infrastructure. For conversations about financials, HR matters, or anything under NDA, this is a hard constraint.

Bot-Joining Friction

On some platforms, Fathom joins the meeting as a visible participant. Some hosts block recording bots. Some attendees get uncomfortable when they see "Fathom Notetaker" pop up. Screenpipe records everything on your end without joining the call — no one else knows.

Recurring Per-User Cost

At $19–24 per user per month, a 10-person team pays $2,280–$2,880 per year for meeting transcription alone. Screenpipe's $400 lifetime license covers everything — screen, audio, meetings, search — with no per-user charges.

What Screenpipe Does Differently

Screenpipe captures your entire screen via accessibility APIs (with OCR fallback) and all audio via local transcription — continuously. You don't start or stop recording. It's always running.

For meetings:

Full audio transcript without joining the call as a bot
Screen content captured — shared slides, URLs in chat, documents on screen
Ask the AI afterward: "What were the action items from my 3pm call?"

Beyond meetings:

Search your screen history: "When did I see that error message?"
Find that URL or Slack message from two days ago
Ask "What was I working on yesterday afternoon?"
Build custom automations with the developer API

The fundamental difference: Fathom gives you meeting notes. Screenpipe gives you a searchable memory of your entire workday.

Privacy Comparison

This matters more than most people think.

Fathom processes audio through their cloud. Their privacy policy explains how they handle data, but you can't verify the implementation — the code is closed.

Screenpipe stores everything on your local machine. The code is open source on GitHub with 16,000+ stars, so you can verify every line. Your data never touches an external server unless you explicitly configure cloud AI models.

For teams in healthcare, legal, finance, or government — where data residency matters — local-first is often a requirement, not a preference.

Pricing Breakdown

	Screenpipe	Fathom
1 user, 1 year	$400 (lifetime)	~$228–288
1 user, 2 years	$400	~$456–576
10-person team, 1 year	$400	~$2,280–2,880
Scope	Screen + audio + meetings + API	Meeting transcription only

Screenpipe breaks even versus Fathom at around 17–21 months for a single user. For teams, Screenpipe costs a fraction.

When to Choose Fathom

Fathom makes sense if:

Your work is almost entirely meetings (sales, recruiting, consulting)
You want zero-config meeting capture with CRM auto-sync
You're fine with cloud storage and per-user pricing
You don't need screen capture, offline mode, or developer tools

When to Choose Screenpipe

Screenpipe makes sense if:

You want to capture your entire workday, not only meetings
Privacy and data ownership matter to your team
You need screen content (slides, documents, code) captured alongside audio
You want an API to build custom workflows
You prefer a one-time payment over recurring subscriptions
You use Linux or need cross-platform support

Bottom Line

Fathom is a solid meeting transcription tool with strong CRM integrations. If meetings are your entire workflow and you want a plug-and-play solution, it delivers.

Screenpipe captures everything — meetings included — and stores it locally. It costs less over time, covers more of your workday, and gives you full control over your data.

The choice comes down to scope: do you want a meeting tool, or a memory layer for your entire digital life?

Try Screenpipe →

Screenpipe vs Fathom in 2026 — Meeting Tool vs Full Screen Memory