OpenHistory vs Fellow: Which is Better in 2026?

as of Sep 30, 2026

• Permission-scoped activity capture
• Hourly and daily summaries
• Local AI agent access
• No sensitive capture by design
• No telemetry

• Flexible meeting capture
• Context-aware AI summaries
• Ask Fellow
• Agentic workflows
• Recording policies and consent
• +6 more

OpenHistory is an open-source macOS app that builds a private, searchable timeline of a user's work by observing only the foreground activity they explicitly permit — window names, document context, browser domains, clicks, and visible interface text via macOS Accessibility APIs. It generates hourly and daily summaries and gives approved local AI agents a controlled way to answer questions about what the user did, using Apple's local Foundation Model by default or, optionally, OpenAI, Anthropic, or Kimi. By design, it does not capture screenshots, audio, camera or microphone input, passwords, private browser windows, or low-level keystrokes, and sends no analytics or telemetry of its own. All activity, timelines, summaries, settings, and agent connections are stored in a permission-restricted directory on the user's own Mac. It requires macOS 14 or later and is available on GitHub and via a direct download from its own site.

Fellow is an AI meeting notetaker that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings across Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and in-person conversations, then surfaces action items and connects meeting intelligence to AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude via MCP. It is built for regulated, security-conscious organizations—including private equity firms, hedge funds, investment banks, asset managers, fintechs, RIAs, and broker-dealers subject to SEC recordkeeping and FINRA supervision. Its main differentiator is compliance-first governance: organization-wide recording, access, and retention controls (including zero-day retention and MNPI redaction), a strict no-AI-training policy, and an SEC Rule 17a-4/FINRA exam-ready audit trail.