Qarar or Notta for meetings in Arabic and English?

If what you mainly need is a transcript that keeps the meeting’s dialect, then a summary, decisions and action items in Modern Standard Arabic, that is the workflow Qarar was designed for. If you need transcription and translation across several languages, Notta is worth comparing: its documentation names Arabic explicitly, including bilingual transcription with English. This comparison does not mean either tool is more accurate on your recording; that takes a direct test.

Disclosure: we are the Qarar team, so this is a comparison by the product’s publisher, not an independent review. We checked the official sources on 16 October 2026. We did not run a joint accuracy test of the two tools for this article.

Does Notta really support Arabic?

Yes. Notta lists Arabic among its monolingual transcription languages and among the languages available for bilingual transcription, where you can choose any two languages, Arabic and English included. ^[1] So it would be inaccurate to present Qarar as the only option for Arabic meetings.

The more useful question is what you need after the meeting. Text to search? A translation? Or Arabic minutes that show the decision, the task, the owner and the due date?

Transcript in dialect, notes in Modern Standard Arabic

Qarar describes a workflow that keeps the dialect and English words in the transcript, and writes the summary, decisions and action items in Modern Standard Arabic, with a timestamp to go back to each note’s source. It is designed for meetings in Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf and other dialects. These are product descriptions, not a guarantee against mistakes in names, numbers or who said what. How Qarar works.

A language appearing on a list does not by itself prove how well a particular dialect is understood, and a summary worded differently does not prove the transcript was wrong. Keep three things apart when you review: what was said, what was decided, and how the final notes were worded.

Recording meetings and uploading files

Qarar works from an uploaded recording or from recording in the browser, with no bot joining the call. It has an optional Mac recorder that requires macOS 14.4 or later. How audio is captured depends on the browser and device. Recording options in Qarar.

Notta documents bilingual transcription for real-time recording, for meetings joined by Notta Bot and for uploaded files. Its help page says “Bilingual translation is not currently supported” for uploads, and “Records uploaded via a link cannot be transcribed in bilingual mode.” The same page caps uploads at “1GB or 3 hours, whichever is smaller” for audio and “10GB or 3 hours, whichever is smaller” for video. ^[2] Don’t confuse transcription with translation when you choose the setting.

This compares specific workflows; it is not a list of every way Notta can record. Choose a method that suits your devices and your team’s policy, and tell participants and get the consent you need before recording or uploading.

Pricing: watch recording length and add-ons

On the review date: Notta’s pricing page showed Pro, with an advertised discount, at “$8.17 USD/month, Total $97.99 · Billed annually”, with 1,800 transcription minutes a month and up to 5 hours per recording. It listed a Bilingual Transcription & Translation add-on at US$15 a month, or US$108 billed annually. ^[3] Check what usage is included and whether you need the add-on, and don’t treat the base plan price as the cost of every possible workflow. Pro’s five-hour recording limit is separate from the bilingual upload limit, which is three hours a file.

Qarar’s pricing page lists Starter at US$7.99 per seat a month billed annually, or US$12 billed monthly, with 1,200 minutes per seat a month, alongside Pro and Team. Compare plans by seat count and meeting length, not by the base price alone. Qarar’s plans and prices.

A short test tells you more than a feature list

Choose a recording that is not sensitive, that you have permission to use, and that resembles your real meetings. Make sure it includes:

1. More than one speaker, taking turns.
2. A person’s or product’s name, a number and a date.
3. A sentence that moves between Arabic and English, if that is usual in your team.
4. A proposal that was not adopted, and a decision that actually was.
5. A task whose owner was named, and one whose owner was not.

Prepare the correct answers by hand, then compare the outputs. Was the number kept? Did the proposal turn into a decision by mistake? Was an owner added whom nobody named? How much correction did the minutes need before they were ready to share? Don’t publish a general accuracy figure from one small example.

Who each option suits

Put Notta on your list if translation and multiple languages are central to the work, and check the language mode and add-ons you need. Put Qarar on your list if the goal is structured Arabic minutes you can trace from each note back to its source.

If you have specific requirements for where data is processed or how long it is kept, review them before uploading any meeting. Qarar states that processing is in the cloud and storage is in eastern North America; don’t assume an Arabic interface means hosting in your country. Qarar’s data and privacy.