Fathom vs Circleback

Fathom

Bot-free options on Mac; bot-based recording on Windows

Fathom supports major online platforms on computers, but its current 3.0 rollout is limited to Mac and English-language meetings. Windows remains supported through the older bot-based experience. Official pages conflict on whether iOS in-person capture is already live; Android, Chromebook, Linux, phone calls, webinars, and breakout rooms are not normal supported paths.

EvidenceFathom supported systemsFathom 3.0 rollout

Circleback

Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, and Apple Watch

macOS and Windows apps capture online meetings without a bot, including system audio and video, with recording from the detected-meeting prompt. The iOS and Android apps record in-person conversations and include Assistant. Apple Watch records from your wrist without the iPhone nearby. Every app sends recordings into the same Circleback meeting system.

EvidenceCircleback recording guideCircleback desktop recordingCircleback mobile and Apple Watch apps

Fathom

iOS availability is unclear; verify in-person speaker labels

Fathom’s marketing overview says its iOS app captures in-person meetings, but the help center and current launch page still call it coming soon or pre-download. In the older workaround, every room voice is attributed to the Fathom user rather than separated. Verify iOS access and room-speaker labeling in the actual account before rollout.

EvidenceFathom in-person meetingsFathom product overview

Circleback

Phone, desktop, or Watch—with speaker labels

Record in-person conversations from iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, or Apple Watch. For quick capture, tap your phone’s Lock Screen widget or Apple Watch complication, or press and hold your configured iPhone Action button. No separate recorder is needed. Recordings get the same speaker labels, notes, assigned action items, search, sharing, and automations as online meetings. Phone calls use an existing call recording imported into Circleback.

EvidenceCircleback product guideCircleback mobile and Apple Watch appsCircleback mobile recording shortcutsCircleback iPhone Action buttonCircleback Apple Watch complication

Fathom

Unlimited AV, playback, highlights, and clips

Fathom supports playback, clips, and sharing for online calls. Bot-free video is limited to Zoom on Mac; other supported platforms have different recording options.

EvidenceFathom pricingFathom bot-free recordingFathom product overview

Circleback

Optional recordings with playback, downloads, and clips

Every capture route can keep the source recording with the meeting. Play it beside the transcript, download it, link to a moment, or make a clip. If you only want notes and the speaker-labeled transcript, turn recording storage off.

EvidenceCircleback recording guideCircleback optional recording storage

Fathom

Fast summaries, assigned action items, Ask Fathom, and team search

Summary quality and speed are core strengths. Paid AI action items identify assignees and link to the source moment; the API also returns completion state and assignee metadata. Fathom presents action items inside each meeting rather than documenting a workspace-wide task dashboard. Advanced summary types and some AI capabilities are plan-limited even while base transcription is free.

EvidenceFathom pricingFathom product overviewFathom AI action items

Circleback

Detailed standalone notes, assigned action items, and cited search

Circleback’s notes are designed to give someone who missed the meeting its context, decisions, and next steps. It automatically creates action items and assigns them when the conversation makes the owner clear. One workspace-wide list lets teams filter and complete tasks across meetings. Custom insights extract the fields a team needs, while Assistant searches meetings and connected email with citations.

EvidenceCircleback product guideCircleback action items in LinearCircleback CLI documentation

Fathom

Meeting and customer-call library

Fathom organizes team calls and customer context. The cited docs do not establish shared person and company histories that combine meetings, email, and calendars across departments.

EvidenceFathom pricing

Circleback

Meeting and email history for each person and company

Person and company pages combine rolling summaries, relationship timelines, emails, meetings, attendees, and upcoming events. Search and Assistant work across that context, so a conversation stays useful to the next person and the next team.

EvidenceCircleback product guide

Fathom

Organization and team visibility defaults, plus attendee auto-share

Admins can set auto-capture and visibility separately for external, internal, and unscheduled meetings at organization or team level, including whether users may override the default. Individuals can also send a summary, a recording, or both automatically—but the audience is every calendar invitee, including people who did not attend.

EvidenceFathom auto-capture and visibility controlsFathom attendee auto-share

Circleback

Conditional automatic sharing with workspace safeguards

Automations can share matching meetings with specific people, teams, or the whole workspace based on titles, participants, invitee emails or domains, tags, and combined conditions. Admins can set or enforce default sharing access while members retain explicit controls for private or sensitive conversations.

EvidenceCircleback automatic sharingCircleback enforced workspace settings

Fathom

CRM, webhook, Zapier, and Asana follow-through

Fathom handles common customer-facing follow-through well. Assigned action items can sync automatically or manually to Asana, webhooks can deliver action-item payloads, and Zapier or CRM integrations extend delivery. It does not document the same broad native trigger/condition/action builder for arbitrary work systems.

EvidenceFathom pricingFathom Asana integrationFathom public API

Circleback

Conditional sharing, CRM updates, and task creation

Run actions when meetings match conditions, extract the fields each team cares about, share notes, and route the result into the system where work happens. Sales can update the CRM; product and research can collect themes; engineering can open assigned issues in Linear or another tracker; recruiting and customer teams can route structured follow-up. Automations also post to Slack, call webhooks, and re-run against older meetings.

EvidenceCircleback product guide

Fathom

Strong CRM, Asana, Zapier, and common work-tool connections

CRM delivery and collaboration integrations cover the common sales workflow, while Asana turns assigned meeting actions into trackable tasks. Broader issue-tracker coverage and custom operational actions are less central.

EvidenceFathom pricingFathom Asana integration

Circleback

Search other apps, then do the work there

Circleback Assistant can look up context and take actions in tools such as Linear, Notion, Asana, HubSpot, PostHog, Attio, Ashby, and Intercom. Automations can create Linear issues from assigned meeting action items, write action items to monday.com, and send outcomes to Slack, Salesforce, Zoho, and more. Connect additional tools through Zapier, Make, webhooks, or custom MCP servers.

EvidenceCircleback product guideCircleback Assistant connectors

Fathom

Rich public API and MCP, scoped to the connected user

The REST API can return speaker-attributed transcripts, summaries, action items with assignees and completion state, attendees, CRM matches, playback metadata, and recording downloads. Its official MCP connects authorized meeting data to ChatGPT, Claude, and other clients. Both follow what the authenticated user owns or can see through team sharing; an administrator key does not automatically reach private meetings across the organization.

EvidenceFathom public APIFathom MCPFathom release notes

Circleback

The same complete meeting data for people and AI agents

Circleback is built for people and AI agents. The complete meeting record a person can access—its full speaker-labeled transcript, recording, notes, action items, metadata, attendees, and related people and companies—is also available programmatically through the public API, MCP, and CLI. The API also supports action-item updates. MCP and CLI are read-only and add search and retrieval across meetings, transcripts, action items, calendars, email, people, companies, and tags. Connect ChatGPT or Claude, build internal tools, or receive meeting data by webhook.

EvidenceCircleback public APICircleback MCP documentationCircleback CLI documentation

Fathom

Strong upper-tier controls, with US-only hosting

Enterprise adds SSO, SCIM, and custom retention. Fathom currently supports one retention policy per team and asks customers to configure it through support. All data is US-hosted; de-identified data may improve Fathom’s in-house models unless users or a Team Edition admin opt out.

EvidenceFathom pricingFathom auto-capture and visibility controlsFathom security and AI trainingFathom retention policies

Circleback

Security, privacy, and workspace controls

Customer data is encrypted at rest and in transit and never used to train models. Circleback is SOC 2 Type II, certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, supports GDPR obligations, and is HIPAA-compliant with BAAs available. The security portal includes compliance materials and an external infrastructure pentest report. Available controls include single sign-on (SAML or OIDC) and SCIM provisioning, configurable data retention and recording storage, enforced workspace and sharing settings, teams and roles, domain and API key access controls, centralized billing, usage reporting, and free viewer seats.

EvidenceCircleback enforced workspace settingsCircleback security and data processingCircleback security overviewCircleback security portal

Fathom

38 languages on the free plan

Fathom documents 38 supported languages. Bot-free rollout is currently narrower, so language support should be checked per capture mode.

EvidenceFathom pricingFathom bot-free recording

Circleback

100+ transcription languages

Users can choose from more than 100 meeting languages and separately control the output language used for generated notes.

EvidenceCircleback product guide