Sotto — Features
Human subjects research spans qualitative inquiry, quantitative analysis, and the integration of both. Most tools address one corner of that space. Sotto is built for all of it — organized around the full research methodology, not a collection of useful features.
Qualitative
Audio-to-text runs locally — your interview recordings are transcribed with speaker turns, formatted, and ready for coding. Work through six structured analysis phases from familiarization to synthesis. Ask Sotto to surface recurring themes, trace a concept across participants, or draft a reflective memo. Grounded theory, thematic analysis, phenomenological methods, case study — Sotto works within your methodology, not around it.
From transcription through thematic synthesis — the complete qualitative workflow
Quantitative
Design survey instruments, import datasets, run descriptive and inferential statistics, and generate visualizations — all within your private environment. Ask Sotto to help interpret findings, connect results to your theoretical framework, and translate statistical output into language your readers can follow.
Works with survey data, regression output, and descriptive statistics
Mixed Methods
Mixed methods research requires holding two types of evidence at once and constructing inferences neither strand could yield alone. Sotto supports convergent, explanatory sequential, and exploratory sequential designs — cross-referencing qualitative themes with quantitative findings, supporting joint display construction, and helping you write integration discussions that speak to both strands.
Convergent design, explanatory sequential, integration discussions
Data Visualization
Sotto generates visualizations of your data directly within your private environment — theme frequency charts, participant response maps, longitudinal patterns, and distribution plots. Visualizations are rendered locally and exported without routing your data through any external service.
Export-ready for manuscripts, institutional reports, and major citation styles
Writing Support
Sotto understands your project structure, your literature, and your actual findings. Ask it to help connect a finding to a theoretical framework, draft a discussion section grounded in your data, or work through a stuck argument. It writes from your corpus — not from the internet.
Context-aware across your full document set
Language Support
Sotto supports English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, and Brazilian Portuguese throughout — interface, transcription, analysis, and writing. Interview transcripts are processed in the language they were recorded. Coding, thematic analysis, and writing assistance work in your working language. You don't translate your research to use your tools.
Interface, transcription, and analysis — all in your working language
Sotto applies different standards to different research paradigms — because they require different things. Trustworthiness criteria for qualitative work. Validity and reliability for quantitative. Integration logic for mixed methods.
It knows the difference between a theme and a code, between a finding and an interpretation, between synthesis and summary. It doesn't flatten your methodology to fit a general-purpose AI. It works within the framework you're using.
"When you're ready to draft, Sotto draws on your own ingested research."
Your literature, your transcripts, your analysis. You decide what context to include and when to send it. Nothing leaves your environment automatically. The writing assistant is a tool you pick up and put down, not a background process.
Qualitative analysis. Quantitative methods. Mixed methods integration. Literature management. Transcription. AI-assisted writing. All in a private environment you control. The table below shows what each category of tool does — and what it doesn't.
| Capability | Sotto | NVivo / ATLAS.ti | MAXQDA | Otter.ai | Dedoose | Statistics Tools |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Local / private deployment | ✓ | ✗ | Partial | ✗ | ✗ | Partial |
| Audio transcription (local) | ✓ | ✗ cloud | ✗ cloud | ✗ cloud | ✗ | ✗ |
| Six-phase qualitative analysis | ✓ | Partial | ✓ | ✗ | Partial | ✗ |
| Quantitative analysis | ✓ | ✗ | Partial | ✗ | Partial | ✓ |
| Mixed methods integration | ✓ | ✗ | Partial | ✗ | Partial | ✗ |
| AI-guided data exploration Ask questions about your data in plain language — across transcripts, datasets, and literature simultaneously. | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Literature management | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| AI-assisted writing | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Socratic research challenge AI-simulated committee questioning to stress-test your methodology, findings, and arguments before defense. | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Researcher-gated data pipeline | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | N/A |
| Multilingual support (6 languages) | ✓ | Partial | Partial | ✓ | ✗ | Partial |
| No cloud account required | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | Partial |
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All product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Comparison based on publicly available information as of April 2026.