Self-hosting meeting translation means the entire stack — speech-to-text, translation, and storage — runs on your own infrastructure, so meeting data never leaves your servers. You need it when data-sovereignty rules, a no-third-party-processor security policy, or a regulated industry require it. You don't need it if a hosted service with regional storage, a signed DPA, and no model training already meets your requirements. Here's how to tell which side of that line you're on.
What self-hosting actually means
With a hosted service, your audio is processed on the vendor's infrastructure (and usually their AI subprocessors). With self-hosting, you deploy the whole thing inside your own environment — your cloud account or your data center — and the meeting audio, transcripts, and summaries stay there. No third party receives the content, because there's no third party in the path.
That's the real distinction: not "more secure" in some vague sense, but a different data-flow. Self-hosting removes the "do we trust the vendor and its subprocessors" question by removing the vendor from the data path entirely.
When you actually need it
- Data sovereignty / residency law. If regulation requires that meeting content physically stays in a specific country or network, and a regional cloud option isn't sufficient, self-hosting is the clean answer.
- A no-third-party-processor policy. Some security teams — common in finance, healthcare, government, and defense — simply don't allow sensitive content to touch an external processor. Self-hosting satisfies that by design.
- Full ownership of the archive. If you want your meeting record to live entirely under your own controls, retention, and access policy, self-hosting gives you that.
When you don't
Most teams don't need it. If your real requirements are "keep our data in the EU," "have a DPA on file," and "make sure nobody trains AI on our calls," a hosted service that offers regional storage (US, EU, or APAC), a DPA with Standard Contractual Clauses, and a no-training guarantee that extends to its AI vendors already covers them — without you running and patching infrastructure. Self-hosting is a real operational commitment; reach for it when the requirement is genuinely "nothing leaves our walls," not as a default.
It's worth being honest about the trade: self-hosting buys you maximum control and removes the third-party question, at the cost of running the deployment yourself. The hosted path buys you simplicity, at the cost of trusting a (verifiable, contractually-bound) vendor chain. Neither is automatically "right."
How Sageio self-hosting works
Self-hosting is available on the Enterprise tier. You get a Helm chart and infrastructure-as-code templates to deploy the stack in your own environment, deployment support and an SOP, a customer success engineer for the rollout, and update channels to stay current. Your meeting data never leaves your servers.
If you're not at "nothing leaves our walls" yet, the hosted product already lets you choose your storage region (US, EU, or APAC), keeps only encrypted text (audio is discarded after processing), doesn't train models on your content — and its AI vendors are contractually restricted from doing so — and ships with a DPA for review. (Today the bot runs on Google Meet; Zoom and Microsoft Teams support is coming soon.)
Frequently asked questions
What does self-hosting meeting translation mean? It means deploying the entire translation stack — speech-to-text, translation, and storage — inside your own infrastructure, so meeting audio, transcripts, and summaries never leave your servers and no third-party processor is in the data path.
When should a team self-host instead of using a hosted service? When data-sovereignty law requires content to stay in a specific country, when a security policy forbids external data processors, or in regulated industries (finance, healthcare, government, defense) where "nothing leaves our walls" is a hard requirement. If your needs are regional storage, a DPA, and no AI training, a hosted service usually covers them.
Does self-hosting help with GDPR? It can simplify GDPR by removing third-party processors from the data path entirely. But GDPR compliance is also achievable with a hosted service that offers EU storage, a DPA with Standard Contractual Clauses, and a no-training guarantee — self-hosting is the stricter option, not the only one.
Does Sageio offer self-hosting? Yes, on the Enterprise tier — with a Helm chart, infrastructure-as-code templates, a deployment SOP, a customer success engineer, and update channels. Your meeting data stays on your own servers.
What does it cost to try the hosted version first? Every plan starts with a free 60-minute trial, no credit card required. After that, Professional is $49/month and Teams is $99 per seat/month (annual billing includes 2 months free); Enterprise (including self-hosting) is custom-priced.
The honest test is your requirement, not the feature: if regulation or policy says meeting data can't leave your environment, self-host; if it says "keep it in our region, on contract, untrained," the hosted product already does that. Start with the trial and talk to us about Enterprise if you land on the strict side.