Nylas vs Recall.ai: meeting bot APIs compared

Nylas vs Recall.ai comes down to scope. Both send a bot into Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet calls, record them, and return a transcript through an API. Recall.ai is a meeting-data platform with bots, a Desktop Recording SDK, and real-time streams. The Nylas Notetaker API is a meeting bot that shares a grant with the Email, Calendar, and Contacts APIs, which are part of Nylas Connect.

Both products ship changes often, so check the linked Recall.ai pages while you scope.

Nylas vs Recall.ai at a glance

The table compares the two APIs on the 7 points developers ask about most. Recall.ai cells come from Recall.ai’s documentation; Notetaker API cells come from the Notetaker overview and the pages linked in each section below.

	Recall.ai	Nylas Notetaker API
Send a bot	POST /api/v1/bot with meeting_url	POST /v3/notetakers or POST /v3/grants/{grant_id}/notetakers with meeting_link
Bot platforms	Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, GoTo Meeting (beta)	Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams
Recording without a bot	Desktop Recording SDK	Not offered
Calendar-driven bots	Calendar integration for Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook	Calendar sync rules on a connected grant, plus Scheduler bookings
Bot identity	Guest, or signed-in on Zoom, Teams, and Meet	Guest (non-signed-in) only
Signed media URL lifetime	5 hours	60 minutes
Default media retention	Indefinite for accounts created after June 12, 2025	14 days, configurable from 5 minutes to 30 days

What’s the difference between Recall.ai and Nylas Notetaker?

Recall.ai is an API for capturing meeting data through bots, a Desktop Recording SDK, and real-time audio, video, and transcript streams, with a choice of transcription providers. Nylas Notetaker is a meeting bot for 3 platforms that returns a recording, transcript, summary, and action items, and it uses the same grant as the Email and Calendar APIs.

Recall.ai’s getting started page lists its products: Meeting Bots, the Desktop Recording SDK, Transcription, Calendar, interactive live avatars, and Meeting Direct Connect. Its transcription overview lists 7 speech-to-text providers, including Recall.ai’s own, Deepgram, and AssemblyAI, and real-time transcription delivers utterances during the call.

The Notetaker API produces up to 5 files per meeting after the call: a recording, a thumbnail, a speaker-labelled JSON transcript with start and end times in milliseconds, and JSON summary and action-item files. Summary and action-item prompts accept custom instructions of up to 3,000 characters. See Notetaker media formats for each file’s shape.

Which is easier to set up, Recall.ai or Nylas?

For one bot in one meeting, both take an API key and a single POST request. Recall.ai also needs your account’s regional base URL, such as us-east-1.recall.ai. The Notetaker API’s standalone POST /v3/notetakers endpoint needs no connected account, and the quickstart sends a first bot to a Zoom, Teams, or Meet call in under 5 minutes.

The Recall.ai quickstart creates a bot with meeting_url and a recording_config, then fetches the recording from GET /api/v1/bot/{id}. Recall.ai states that Zoom, Meet, and Teams bots work with no setup. Calendar-driven bots take more work on both sides: Recall.ai’s calendar integration has 2 versions and needs Google or Microsoft OAuth configured for Recall.ai, and the Notetaker API’s calendar sync needs a grant for the user.

The request below invites a Notetaker to a meeting with a grant. It sets recording_type, transcription, a summary, and action items in notetaker_settings, and the bot joins at the join_time Unix timestamp. Leave out join_time and the bot joins right away.

RequestResponse (JSON)

curl --request POST \
  --url "https://api.us.nylas.com/v3/grants/<NYLAS_GRANT_ID>/notetakers" \
  --header 'Accept: application/json' \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <NYLAS_API_KEY>' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
    "join_time": 1732657774,
    "meeting_link": "https://meet.google.com/xyz-abcd-ijk",
    "notetaker_settings": {
      "name": "Nylas Notetaker",
      "action_items": true,
      "action_items_settings": {
        "custom_instructions": "Only return the 5 most important action items."
      },
      "leave_after_silence_seconds": 360,
      "recording_type": "audio_video",
      "summary": true,
      "summary_settings": {
        "custom_instructions": "Return this summary in the MEDPIC sales methodology."
      },
      "transcription": true,
      "transcription_settings": {
        "expected_languages": ["en", "es"],
        "fallback_language": "en"
      }
    }
  }'

{
  "request_id": "5fa64c92-e840-4357-86b9-2aa364d35b88",
  "data": {
    "id": "<NOTETAKER_ID>",
    "name": "Nyla's Notetaker",
    "join_time": 1732657774,
    "meeting_link": "<MEETING_URL>",
    "meeting_provider": "Google Meet",
    "state": "scheduled",
    "meeting_settings": {
      "action_items": true,
      "action_items_settings": {
        "custom_instructions": "Only return the 5 most important action items."
      },
      "audio_recording": true,
      "summary": true,
      "summary_settings": {
        "custom_instructions": "Return this summary in the MEDPIC sales methodology."
      },
      "transcription": true,
      "transcription_settings": {
        "expected_languages": ["en", "es"],
        "fallback_language": "en"
      },
      "video_recording": true
    }
  }
}

The Notetaker API quickstart walks through the first request end to end.

Which meeting platforms does each support?

Recall.ai’s meeting bots support 5 platforms: Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, and GoTo Meeting, which is in beta. Its Desktop Recording SDK records Zoom, Teams, and Meet calls on Windows and Apple Silicon Macs without a bot. The Nylas Notetaker API supports 3 platforms: Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams.

Recall.ai’s meeting platforms page lists bot support per platform and a separate matrix for the Desktop Recording SDK, which also covers audio-only Slack recording on Mac. Recall.ai bots can also run signed in on Zoom, Teams, and Meet.

Beyond meeting platforms, the two products connect to different systems. A Notetaker API grant also reads the user’s email, calendar, and contacts through Nylas Connect, and the Scheduler integration sends a bot to every booked meeting. The Notetaker always joins as a non-signed-in guest, so meetings restricted to organization members need someone to admit it within about 10 minutes.

How do Recall.ai and Nylas secure recordings with signed URLs?

Both APIs return recordings and transcripts behind signed URLs that expire. Recall.ai’s signed S3 URLs expire after 5 hours. Nylas Notetaker media URLs expire after 60 minutes, and each URL is scoped to a single file. On both APIs, calling the retrieve endpoint again returns a working URL while the media is still stored.

Retention is configured differently. Recall.ai sets recording_config.retention per recording, as timed hours or forever, and its default retention is indefinite for accounts created after June 12, 2025. Notetaker media stays for 14 days by default, and retention_time accepts 300 to 2,592,000 seconds. See retention policies.

The request below returns a fresh set of Notetaker media URLs once the bot reaches the available state. The endpoint is read-only, so you can call it each time a user opens a recording.

Request

curl --request GET \
  --url "https://api.us.nylas.com/v3/grants/<NYLAS_GRANT_ID>/notetakers/<NOTETAKER_ID>/media" \
  --header 'Accept: application/json' \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <NYLAS_API_KEY>'

Anyone who holds a signed URL can download the file until it expires, so proxy downloads through your server. The secure meeting recordings recipe covers storing media in your own bucket and serving playback.

How do webhooks tell you a recording is ready?

Recall.ai sends a recording.done webhook when all media for a recording is available, plus separate transcript.done events. The Nylas Notetaker API has 5 webhook triggers, and notetaker.media reports when files are ready: first with the processing state, then with available and the download URLs.

Recall.ai’s recording webhooks page lists the recording and transcript events. On the Notetaker API, notetaker.meeting_state tracks the bot through joining, attending, and leaving, which drives a “recording in progress” indicator. The URLs in a notetaker.media payload still expire after 60 minutes, so download the files when the webhook arrives. See Notetaker webhooks for the trigger list and a handler.

When should you choose Recall.ai?

Recall.ai is the better fit when you need Webex or GoTo Meeting bots, recording without a bot through its Desktop Recording SDK, real-time transcripts during the call, signed-in bots, or a specific speech-to-text provider. The Nylas Notetaker API fits when you record Zoom, Teams, and Meet calls and also need the user’s email or calendar data.

With the Notetaker API, one grant covers email, calendar, contacts, and meeting recording, so calendar sync schedules bots for booked events using the calendar access the grant already has, and reschedules or cancels them as events change. Media from those bots stays available for 14 days by default. For a wider comparison that includes speech-to-text engines, see meeting transcription APIs compared.

What’s next

• Notetaker API quickstart to send your first bot
• Using Nylas Notetaker for join options, notetaker_settings, and webhooks
• Handling Notetaker media files for URL expiry and the download pattern
• Fathom API vs Nylas Notetaker API to compare with Fathom’s meeting-data API