User research · checked 2026-10-13

Can I vibecode Dovetail?

YES· one-shottable

For one researcher, Dovetail's core is a loop an agent can build in a sitting: drop in interview recordings, transcribe them locally with Whisper, highlight and tag quotes on a transcript that follows the video, search everything, and let a model suggest themes. Clip reels come from ffmpeg. What you give up is the organisation side: a shared repository stakeholders browse on their own, feedback streaming in from support and sales tools, SSO and redaction. With Dovetail now selling only a one-project free plan or an enterprise contract, a local build is the practical step up for a freelancer or a small team.

variesprice

—you'd save a year

one sittingbuild time

—people replaced it

Before you start

What you need on hand.

DifficultyIntermediate · Some system setup or keys.

Time1-2 hours to build, plus transcription time for your recordings

Claude Code, Codex or CursorAny of them can run the prompt.
Node.js 22 with build toolswhisper.cpp and better-sqlite3 compile native code: Xcode command-line tools on macOS, build-essential and cmake on Linux.
ffmpegFor audio conversion and the highlight reels.
Room for your recordingsInterview videos add up fast; the base whisper model itself is small.
An AI key (optional)Anthropic or OpenAI for summaries and themes, or Ollama to keep interviews entirely on your machine.

Before you buildIf you run one study at a time, Dovetail Free (one project with AI summaries) may already be enough.

1. Install one agent: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor.
2. Make an empty folder and open it in the agent.
3. Paste the prompt below, press enter, and answer its questions as it builds.

The prompt

Build me a local user-research repository to replace Dovetail. Requirements:

- Node.js 22 + TypeScript: a Fastify API and a React UI built with Vite;
  `npm start` serves everything on http://localhost:4650.
- Projects hold notes. A note is an uploaded recording (mp3, m4a, wav, mp4,
  webm), a pasted transcript, or a .vtt, .docx or .txt file. Media goes to
  ./data/media/; everything else to better-sqlite3 at ./data/research.db.
- Transcribe recordings locally with whisper.cpp through the nodejs-whisper
  package (base.en model by default, set in .env) into timestamped segments,
  with a progress bar.
- Transcript next to the player: clicking a line seeks the media; selecting
  text creates a highlight with start and end times. Tags come from a project
  tag list I can create, rename, merge and colour.
- A tag board with one column per tag and highlight cards, filters for
  participant, date and project, and full-text search over all transcripts and
  highlights with SQLite FTS5.
- Optional AI (ANTHROPIC_API_KEY or OPENAI_API_KEY in .env, or OLLAMA_MODEL):
  summarise a note, suggest tags for untagged highlights that I accept or
  reject one by one, and group a project's highlights into themes with quotes.
- Export: a highlight reel as one MP4 cut and joined with ffmpeg, and a
  Markdown report of themes, quotes and timestamps.
- Single user. No accounts, no telemetry, local-first; only the optional AI
  calls leave the machine.
- Out of scope: recording live calls, feeds from support or review tools,
  sharing with stakeholders and SSO.
- README: installing ffmpeg and the whisper model, where data lives, backups.

Opens your agent with the prompt filled in, you press enter. Or copy it and paste it into an empty folder.

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Then keep going

Next prompts, same folder.

The first prompt builds the core. Run these one at a time in the same folder to grow it into your own Dovetail.

Add a Dovetail importer to the research app in this folder. Requirements:

- Accept the CSV files Dovetail exports per project (data, highlights, tags)
  and the .vtt transcripts downloaded per note.
- Read the CSV headers first, show me the column mapping and ask before
  importing anything.
- Create one project per import: notes from the data CSV, highlights and their
  tags from the highlights CSV, and attach each .vtt to the note with the same
  title.
- Keep highlights without timestamps as text-only quotes.
- Print imported, skipped and failed counts; running it twice must not
  duplicate anything.
- Update the README with Dovetail's export steps.

Add speaker labels to transcripts in the research app in this folder. Requirements:

- After transcription, run pyannote.audio speaker diarization in a small
  Python helper (Hugging Face token from .env) and merge the turns with the
  whisper segments.
- Let me name speakers per note (Interviewer, P3) and filter highlights by
  speaker.
- If diarization fails or no token is set, keep the unlabeled transcript.
- Update the README with the Hugging Face token and model-terms steps.

Add a shareable report to the research app in this folder. Requirements:

- From a project, pick themes and highlights and generate a static folder
  ./exports/<project>-<date>/ with index.html, the quotes and a short MP4 clip
  per highlight cut with ffmpeg.
- It needs no server: the folder opens from disk or uploads to any static
  host.
- Replace participant names with P1, P2 unless I tick "Include names".
- Update the README.

Add a question box over all projects in the research app in this folder. Requirements:

- Embed transcript chunks and highlights with nomic-embed-text through Ollama
  and store the vectors in SQLite with sqlite-vec.
- Answer with the model in .env using only the 8 most relevant chunks; every
  answer cites note, speaker and timestamp, and clicking a citation plays that
  moment.
- Re-embed a note when its transcript changes.
- Update the README.

What you lose

A shared repository that stakeholders search on their own
Channels: feedback pulled in from support tickets, app reviews and calls
Integrations with Zoom, Slack, Salesforce and HubSpot
Redaction, SSO, audit logs and the HIPAA option
Translation into 75 languages

Why people still pay

Research teams pay so findings outlive the project: one searchable place where product managers and designers find earlier evidence without asking a researcher. At company scale, security reviews, redaction and links to call and support tools matter as much as the analysis itself.

Moatcollaboration integrations compliance & regulation

Leaving Dovetail

Take your data, then cancel.

1 · Take your data out of Dovetail

1In each project, click ••• (top right), choose raw data, highlights, tags or Docs, and download a CSV. It keeps text, fields and links but not formatting.
2For transcripts, open each recording, click ··· above the transcript and choose Download transcript (VTT). Videos, single highlights and reels download as MP4 from the player.
3To keep a note or Doc with its highlights visible, open it as a full page and use ··· > Print to save a PDF.
4The whole-project .dovetailproject export is encrypted and only re-imports into Dovetail, so it won't help you leave.

2 · Cancel Dovetail

1Legacy self-serve plans: a workspace admin opens Settings > Billing, clicks ••• and chooses Downgrade to Free.
2Enterprise: contact your Customer Success Manager; contracts can't be cancelled in the app.
3To leave completely, an admin can delete the workspace under Settings > Workspace. It is immediate and can't be undone.

A cancelled legacy plan can't be bought again; the only paid option left is Enterprise.
After a downgrade, a workspace with more than one project turns read-only instead of being deleted, so you can still export.
Exports leave out comments and Channels data, and media links in a project export expire after 3 days.
There is no refund for the rest of a paid period.

Checked 2026-10-13 against Dovetail's docs: 1, 2, 3, 4

The escape hatch

Don't feel like building it? These are already free.

QualCoderOpen sourceDesktop qualitative analysis for text, images, audio and video, with codes, memos and reports.★ 689 · active Oct 2026 · one-click install
Windows, macOS, LinuxVisit ↗TaguetteOpen sourceHighlight and tag quotes in documents and export them by tag; runs on your computer or a server, with a hosted instance to try.★ 90 · active Sep 2026 · one-click install
Web, Windows, macOS, LinuxVisit ↗noScribeOpen sourceLocal Whisper transcription with speaker detection and a review editor, made for research interviews.★ 2.2k · active Oct 2026 · one-click install
Windows, macOS, LinuxVisit ↗

All 5 free alternatives to Dovetail ›

The numbers

Dovetail pricing

Plan	Monthly	Annual, per month	What you get
Free	$0/user	$0/user	1 project, 1 channel, 1 dashboard; basic AI chat and summaries limited to that project.
Enterprise	custom	—	Unlimited projects, channels, dashboards, Docs and agents; semantic search, AI clustering, redaction, SSO, audit log, queries from Slack and Teams.
Legacy self-serve plans	custom	—	Older card-billed paid plans that existing customers can keep.

Free tier: One project, one channel and one dashboard; AI chat and summaries work inside that project only.
Billing: No self-serve paid plan: the only upgrade is an Enterprise quote from sales, billed in USD by invoice or card. No pausing; no refund for the rest of a paid period.
Hidden costs: Seats are paid per manager or contributor; free read-only viewers exist only on Enterprise and some legacy plans. Channels runs on credits, HIPAA is an add-on, and tax is added on top.
Source: dovetail.com

Also on the list

Granola$14/mo · Meeting notesYES

Typeform$39/mo · FormsKINDA

Notion$12/mo · Notes & knowledgeKINDA

Questions

Dovetail, briefly

Not answered here? Tell us and we'll add it.

Ask a question ›

Free covers one project, one channel and one dashboard, with basic AI chat and summaries inside that project.

Yes. An AI coding agent such as Claude Code, Codex or Cursor can build a usable personal version in one session with the prompt on this page, running on your own machine.

Dovetail's pricing is usage-based or varies by plan.

A shared repository that stakeholders search on their own; Channels: feedback pulled in from support tickets, app reviews and calls; Integrations with Zoom, Slack, Salesforce and HubSpot; Redaction, SSO, audit logs and the HIPAA option; Translation into 75 languages. If any of those matter to you, keep paying.