Best Live Translation Extensions for Google Meet 2026

This guide compares MeetVoice, Google Meet’s native translation features and Krisp Live Translation. Otter and Fireflies are discussed separately as meeting assistants; check each tool against the result you need.

How we evaluated these tools

Real-time speech translation has more dimensions than people realise when they start shopping. The six axes that matter for buyer decisions:

1. Real-time vs post-call. Some tools translate during the meeting (everyone hears or sees the translation immediately); others produce a translated transcript after the call ends. Both are useful, but they are not interchangeable.
2. Spoken translation vs text-only captions. Live captions let you read the translation; spoken translation adds a voice in your language, with the original speaker quieter in the background. Reading captions while watching a slide deck is harder than it sounds.
3. Bidirectional. Does the tool translate both participants simultaneously, or only one direction? A one-way translator works for listening to a foreign speaker, but breaks down the moment you need to reply in your own language.
4. Language pairs supported. A vendor saying “100+ languages” usually means transcription, not translation. Real translation pair counts are typically smaller.
5. Audio routing. Local processing keeps audio on your device; vendor cloud routing sends meeting audio to the vendor’s servers. This matters for data residency policies.
6. Pricing model. Subscription, one-time payment, free tier, enterprise access only — and which features are gated behind the higher tiers.

Comparison at a glance

Tool	Real-time	Speech-to-speech voiceover	Bidirectional	Languages	Audio routing	Pricing
MeetVoice	Yes	Yes	Yes	32	Local app, speech recognition included	From €9/month — pricing
Google Meet — Translated captions	✓	—	—	≈70, still rolling out	Google	Business Standard and higher Workspace editions — Google Meet Help
Google Speech Translation	✓ · 90 min	✓	↔	EN ↔ FR/DE/HI/IT/PT/ES	Google	Google Meet Help
Krisp Live Translation	Yes	Yes	Yes	60+	Krisp cloud	Call Center AI application; translation pricing on request — krisp.ai/pricing
Otter.ai	No — live transcription only	No	n/a	6 (transcription)	Otter cloud	Free / Pro $16.99 / Business $30 per user/month, billed monthly — otter.ai/pricing
Fireflies.ai	No — live transcription only	No	n/a	100+ (transcription)	Fireflies cloud	Free / Pro $10 / Business $19 per seat/month, billed annually — fireflies.ai/pricing
Subtitle-only browser extensions	Yes	Some read the translation aloud to you only	No voice for the other side	Varies	Usually the vendor’s cloud	Often a few free minutes every month

Prices and features checked against each vendor’s official pages on 2026-10-01.

1. MeetVoice — best for real-time bidirectional spoken translation

MeetVoice is a Chrome extension paired with a small desktop app that runs locally on Windows or macOS. The extension captures the meeting audio in your tab and passes it to the desktop app, which runs the processing server on your computer: the audio goes through built-in speech recognition, then through a translation model, and the translation of incoming speech comes back to you as on-screen subtitles in your tab and as synthesised speech in your language. Voicing your own speech for the other side is optional and off by default — you turn it on in the extension. While the translated voice plays, the original speaker’s audio is automatically lowered (audio ducking): it stays audible, just quieter, so the translation is easier to hear.

Strengths. Spoken translation with voiceover playback is the headline feature — most “Google Meet translation” tools stop at text captions. MeetVoice translates both directions: when you speak English and your partner speaks German, you read and hear incoming speech in English, and your partner hears your words as a German voice once you turn on translation of your speech in the extension (it is off by default). Subtitles are drawn only in your own tab, so your partner does not see them unless you share that tab or your screen. It supports 32 languages (EN/DE/RU/UK + ES/PT/FR/IT + PL/NL/TR/JA/KO + CS/SK/HU/RO/BG + EL/SV/NB/FI/DA + HI/ZH/VI + HR/SR/SL/LT/LV/ET). Speech recognition is included in every plan — no API key needed; audio is processed in transit through the MeetVoice speech recognition relay and never stored. The extension keeps a per-call transcript in your browser — the other participants’ speech, plus yours when translation of your speech is on — with participant names read from the Meet interface when they can be determined, exportable as PDF, SRT, or TXT after the call. Up to 50 meetings are kept in history.

Limitations. The extension is built for Google Chrome and published only in the Chrome Web Store; there is no Firefox or Safari version. Requires installing both the extension and the desktop app, which is more friction than a pure browser extension. As a newer product, the community is smaller than Otter’s; expect occasional rough edges in less common language pairs.

Best for. Cross-language sales calls, EN↔JA/KO/RU technical interviews, and international standups where participants need to understand incoming speech in their own language. Use multilingual mode for incoming speech across 2–4 expected languages; use regular language-pair mode when your own microphone needs to be translated for someone else. Multilingual mode (2–4 languages from a set of ten) uses the same included recognition as language-pair mode.

If you want a deeper dive on how real-time bidirectional translation works end to end, we wrote a dedicated post on it.

2. Google Meet built-in translated captions / Speech Translation

Strengths. Standard captions transcribe speech; translated captions display translated text on eligible plans. Both are text features. Google Help lists around 70 languages for translated captions, included in Business Standard and higher Workspace editions; translated captions are still rolling out. Speech Translation is a separate feature for translated audio.

Google · 2026-10-01

Limitations. Current Help lists English paired with French, German, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish: one pair per meeting, with a 90-minute limit. Access depends on an eligible plan, administrator settings, supported devices and participants allowing their voices to be translated. Speech Translation also comes with personal Google AI Pro and Google AI Ultra subscriptions; availability in a meeting also depends on the host’s account and admin settings. Speech Translation is not available in recordings or live streams.

Where meeting recording is available, Record captions can include captions in the recording. Turning on captions alone does not automatically create a bilingual PDF, SRT or TXT export; availability and permissions depend on the plan and settings.

Speech Translation · Record captions · Google Workspace Updates

Best for. Try Google’s options when your plan, language pair and meeting length fit. Compare MeetVoice when you need other language pairs or bilingual transcript exports. MeetVoice vs Google Meet built-in captions

---

3. Krisp Live Translation

Krisp is best known as a noise-suppression tool, and the company has launched real-time bidirectional spoken translation in 60+ languages. The mechanics are similar to MeetVoice — speech in, translated speech out — but the packaging is different.

Strengths. When available, the technology covers a wider language footprint (60+) than MeetVoice’s 32, and bundles noise cancellation. Krisp’s enterprise-grade infrastructure has been deployed at large call-center operations.

Limitations. Live Translation is not part of Krisp’s Meeting AI plans (Core $16 and Advanced $30 per user per month, billed monthly). Voice translation sits in Krisp’s Call Center AI products: it is an add-on to CC Core ($15 per agent per month billed annually, before the add-on) and is included in CC Advanced, which is priced on request. Both are aimed at customer-support and outbound-sales operations rather than ad-hoc Google Meet calls, so for an individual Meet user getting Live Translation through Krisp typically means a sales conversation — not the friction-free experience the name might suggest. Krisp also sells a self-serve Voice Translation API for developers; that is a building block for your own product, not a ready app for Google Meet calls. Audio is routed through Krisp’s cloud (rather than locally), so data residency policies matter.

Best for. Call-center operations and large customer-support teams that need translation at scale and have the procurement bandwidth to set it up. Not currently the right fit for an individual freelancer or a small team wanting a quick install on Google Meet. See krisp.ai for current details.

Subtitle-only browser extensions

Several Chrome extensions show translated subtitles of a Google Meet call only to you. Some also read the translation aloud in your browser’s voice, and many include a few free minutes every month, which makes them an inexpensive way to follow a call you mostly listen to. What they don’t do is voice your words for the other participant in their language: if you need to reply in your own language and be understood, you need spoken translation in both directions.

What about Otter, Fireflies, and other meeting transcribers?

Otter and Fireflies appear in almost every search for “Google Meet translation” or “best Google Meet AI tools,” so it’s worth being explicit about what they are. They are meeting assistants — live transcription during the call and summaries afterwards — not live translators. They join a call, transcribe the audio, and produce a summary plus searchable transcript afterwards. Translation in their products applies to the transcript — not to the live conversation.

Otter (otter.ai) transcribes meetings in six languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Chinese) and is widely loved for the quality of its AI summaries on English-language calls. It does not translate spoken audio during the meeting. Pricing: Free / Pro $16.99 per month / Business $30 per month.

Fireflies (fireflies.ai) transcribes in 100+ languages and integrates more deeply with CRM and Slack workflows, which makes it useful for sales operations that want every call captured and pushed downstream. Translation is part of its post-meeting summaries. Pricing: Free / Pro from $10 per month / Business from $19 per month (annual billing; verified 2026-10-01).

Both are excellent at what they do, but neither helps a Russian speaker and a Spanish speaker understand each other live. If the search result that landed you on “best Google Meet translation extensions” was hoping for Otter or Fireflies to do live speech translation — they don’t.

Which one should you choose?

A short decision tree:

• You need real-time spoken translation, both directions, on Google Meet without enterprise sales calls → MeetVoice.
• Try Google’s options when your plan, language pair and meeting length fit. Compare MeetVoice when you need other language pairs or bilingual transcript exports. Google Meet Help
• You run a call-center or support operation needing 60+ languages and have procurement bandwidth → Krisp Live Translation (Call Center AI tier, contact sales).
• You only follow calls as a listener and want a free monthly allowance → a subtitle-only browser extension.
• You want a transcript and AI summary of an English-language meeting → Otter.
• You need transcripts pushed into CRM/Slack workflows after the call → Fireflies.

For most readers who landed on this article expecting to translate ad-hoc Google Meet calls without enterprise procurement, MeetVoice is the closest fit. The 30-minute free trial requires no credit card, so the cost of trying it on one real meeting is zero — and that’s usually the only way to know whether real-time spoken translation changes the way your international calls actually feel.

Download MeetVoice for Windows or macOS and translate your first Google Meet call live, in your language, without typing a word. If you’re ready to go beyond the trial, see pricing plans.