Fireflies.ai Alternative: 7 Meeting Note Tools (2026)

A Fireflies.ai alternative makes sense when you want AI meeting notes, search and conversation intelligence, but a cloud notetaker bot in the participant list is a problem, or when you need tighter control over where audio is processed and stored. Fireflies is strong at team-wide capture, CRM-oriented workflows and analytics across Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams. The options below give up some of that cloud convenience in return for local capture, different pricing or narrower platforms.

This guide compares seven alternatives as of October 2026. Plan limits and prices change, so follow the linked vendor pages before you standardize on a tool.

Contents

• What Fireflies.ai does well
• Fireflies.ai pricing as of October 2026
• How to choose a Fireflies.ai alternative
• Seven Fireflies.ai alternatives
• Comparison table
• Where Fireflies.ai is still the better choice
• Honest limits to plan for
• Frequently asked questions

What Fireflies.ai does well

Fireflies.ai is built around an AI notetaker that can auto-join calendar meetings, record, transcribe and summarize in the cloud. The product advertises speaker recognition, action items, AskFred search across past calls, conversation intelligence and a large integration catalog for CRM and project tools (Fireflies homepage, checked October 2026). Higher tiers add team workspaces, analytics, API access and admin controls (Fireflies pricing, checked October 2026).

For revenue and customer-facing teams that want one searchable library of calls, Fireflies’ bot-first workflow and per-seat plans are the point. The vendor also documents a Chrome extension that records calls in the browser without the Fireflies bot joining as a participant (Fireflies Chrome extension), plus mobile and desktop apps for in-person capture. Its security pages describe SOC 2 Type II, GDPR and HIPAA offerings, private storage on the Enterprise plan and a stated policy that customer data is not used for AI training by default (Fireflies security, checked October 2026).

Fireflies.ai pricing as of October 2026

The plan names and features come from fireflies.ai/pricing and the FAQ on the same page, checked in October 2026. The dollar amounts on that page were not visible as plain text when we loaded it. Fireflies’ billing terms article lists Pro at $10 per user per month on annual billing or $18 billed monthly, Business at $19 or $29, and Enterprise at $39 on annual billing. Confirm the numbers on the pricing page the week you buy.

A seat is any teammate you add to your Fireflies workspace, per the billing article. You can share recap links without adding a seat.

Free is the entry tier. Pro and Business add transcription credits, exports, CRM and app integrations, and team features, and Business adds API access and analytics. The FAQ says there are no monthly rate limits on the meeting bot or the Chrome extension for Pro and Business users. The API, dialers and bulk file uploads do have rate limits.

Enterprise adds SSO, SCIM, private storage, custom data retention and HIPAA compliance, per Fireflies’ Enterprise article.

English is the primary transcription language on the FAQ. Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian and 100+ other languages are listed as beta. Sign-in is through Google or Outlook auth.

How to choose a Fireflies.ai alternative

Three questions decide it.

1. Is the problem the bot, or the account? The Chrome extension records without the notetaker in the list, but the audio still goes to Fireflies. If the issue is cloud storage, the extension does not fix it.
2. Do you need the meeting when the laptop is offline? Fireflies and most cloud notetakers need a network during the call. Local Mac apps need models installed first, then they can run without one.
3. What has to exist after the call? CRM fields, team search, conversation intelligence and a one-time purchase point to different products.

If you only need text from a file you already have, the free transcribe recording tool runs in the browser tab without uploading the file. The cap is 15 minutes and three successful runs a week. It does not record live meetings and it does not name speakers. For the next live meeting on Apple silicon, use the Mac app (how capture works).

Seven Fireflies.ai alternatives

Vemoir (Mac app)

Best for: keeping the recording, the transcript and the minutes on the Mac, with no bot in the call.

Vemoir records the microphone and system audio from the menu bar. You start and stop each session. Transcription and summaries run on the Mac with local models. A cloud model is opt-in, with your own API key. The record is minutes, decisions, action items and a follow-up draft. Speaker separation runs on the Mac. You can ask questions about a meeting, and the answers link back to the transcript (the record, Ask Vemoir).

It works with any app that plays audio on the Mac, including Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, Slack huddles and Discord (platforms). macOS only allows another app’s audio through the Screen Recording permission. Vemoir uses that permission for meeting audio and does not record the screen.

Price, as of October 2026: a one-time purchase in the Mac App Store, with no subscription and no per-meeting charge. CHF 20 in Switzerland, €24.99 in Germany, Austria, France and Italy, $22.99 in the US (pricing). Every feature is in that purchase. Requirements: Apple silicon (M1 or newer), macOS Sonoma 14.2 or later, at least 8 GB of memory and 10 GB of free storage. 16 GB or more is recommended for long meetings. Intel Macs, Windows, iPhone and iPad are not supported.

You can import a file you already have (MP3, M4A, WAV, AIFF, CAF and FLAC). Notes you type during the meeting fold into the minutes.

Skip Vemoir if you work on Windows or an Intel Mac, if someone who is not in the room must record the call with a bot, or if the team needs one shared cloud library with CRM fields.

Otter.ai

Best for: teams that want a familiar calendar notetaker, mobile apps and shared workspaces, and have accepted Otter’s cloud archive.

Otter joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet from the calendar. The desktop app can record without a notetaker in the room, per Otter’s help (desktop app help, as of October 2026). The transcript still goes to Otter’s cloud, which uses AWS S3 storage per Otter’s MP4-to-text page.

Paid plans add longer meetings, shared notes and exports (Otter pricing, October 2026). Admin and recording-permission documentation is in the help center (recording permissions).

Skip Otter if the recording cannot go to a vendor cloud, even when the desktop app hides the bot.

Fathom

Best for: an individual or a small sales team that wants a free plan with a lot of recording, clips, and the option of a bot.

On fathom.ai/pricing, as of October 2026, the free plan lists unlimited recordings and transcriptions, and a choice of bot capture or bot-free capture. Bot-free is marked beta, and only for Mac. The individual Premium plan costs $20 monthly or $16 on annual billing. Team costs $19 or $15 per user per month with a two-user minimum, and Business costs $34 or $25. The page shows annual billing saving roughly 20 to 26 percent, so the lower number is the annual price. Business adds CRM field sync.

Fathom’s pricing page does not describe offline use or on-device storage. A bot-free Mac recording still ends in your Fathom account.

Skip Fathom if the audio must stay on the Mac, if you need Windows without a bot (the beta is Mac only), or if “unlimited” on a free cloud plan is the wrong trade for client calls.

Granola

Best for: people who already take notes and want them rewritten from the computer’s audio, without a participant joining.

Granola’s pricing page, as of October 2026, lists Basic at $0 per user per month, Business at $14, and Enterprise at $35. Basic meeting history is 30 days. Business and Enterprise are unlimited. Bot-free device-audio capture is listed on every plan, as are desktop, iOS, Android and Apple Watch apps. “Audio deleted after transcription” is listed as included. Notes are private until you share them.

The security page says you start Granola yourself, it does not add a bot, and it does not store the audio. Transcription goes through providers such as Deepgram and Assembly. Summaries go through providers such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Granola says it does not allow those providers to train on your data. Granola itself trains on anonymized data unless you opt out in Settings. Enterprise has training off by default. Notes sit in US-hosted AWS.

Skip Granola if you need the audio file later, if you need to work offline, or if cloud-hosted transcripts in the US are the thing you wanted to leave behind.

MacWhisper

Best for: a Mac user who wants local transcription of files and meetings, and will add their own AI keys only if they want summaries.

MacWhisper transcribes locally, records online meetings without a bot, and lists Zoom, Teams, Webex, Skype, Chime, Discord and other calls. The site mentions local models, offline processing and over 100 languages. That language count is their claim. Pro is listed at €64 once, with lifetime updates. The free tier is €0. Summaries and chat can use a cloud model you connect (OpenAI, Anthropic and others) or a local model through Ollama or LM Studio. As of October 2026.

The official site warns about scam download pages. Install from the Gumroad or App Store link, not from a lookalike domain.

Skip MacWhisper if you need Windows or a shared team library with CRM fields. It is a transcription app on one Mac.

tl;dv

Best for: a team that wants a cloud library of Zoom, Meet and Teams calls, with EU hosting, and does not need the file to stay on the laptop.

The pricing page, as of October 2026, lists Free at €0, Pro at €29 per seat per month or €18 on annual billing, and Business at €39 or €29. The features page says no bot is required, that data is hosted and stored in the EU, that recordings are never used to train AI, and that transcription covers 30+ languages. It also describes the free plan as unlimited. That word is tl;dv’s. Confirm the limits at checkout.

tl;dv publishes no offline mode. “No bot” does not mean the audio stayed on your machine.

Skip tl;dv if an EU cloud is still too far for the recording, or if you need the meeting on a laptop with no network.

Jamie

Best for: a team that wants no bot, EU processing, and the audio deleted after transcription, and will pay a subscription for that.

Jamie’s homepage, as of October 2026, says the app runs on the device, no meeting bot joins, and it works for online calls and in-person meetings. Storage and processing stay in the EEA, Switzerland and the UK. Audio is deleted after transcription, encrypted in transit and at rest, and not used to train models. Jamie states ISO 27001 and GDPR compliance, and says it is aligned with DORA. Those are Jamie’s statements about Jamie.

The pricing page lists a free plan, Plus at €21, Pro at €39, Team at €33 and Enterprise as a custom tier. Those prices are per user per month on annual billing. Monthly billing costs more.

Skip Jamie if you need the audio file afterwards, or a meeting with the network off. “Runs on your device” plus “audio deleted after transcription” still means Jamie processed the audio. It is not a file that never left the Mac.

Free browser transcription is for a file you already exported after the call. It does not replace live notetakers like Fireflies or Granola. Compare /tools/transcribe-recording with the Mac app on platform support.

Comparison table

Summaries from vendor sites in October 2026. Confirm the row you care about before you standardize. For a full category ranking with selection criteria, see the best meeting notes app for Mac.

Where Fireflies.ai is still the better choice

Fireflies remains a sensible default when everyone accepts a visible notetaker, you want conversation intelligence across a large call library, and you rely on CRM and workflow integrations out of the box. Teams that already built playbooks around AskFred, topic trackers and team analytics may lose more than they gain by switching for privacy alone.

Fireflies also publishes enterprise admin tooling, custom retention, private storage options and compliance documentation aimed at regulated buyers (Fireflies security, checked October 2026). If your organization standardized on Fireflies seats and integrations, weigh migration cost against data-location requirements.

Honest limits to plan for

No tool on this page makes a recording lawful. You tell people, you keep what you can justify, and you delete the rest. This is not legal advice. Vemoir does not change that.

Local apps need disk space, a model download, and a machine that matches the requirements. Vemoir needs Apple silicon and the Screen Recording permission for system audio. It does not support Windows or Intel Macs (capture details).

Cloud notetakers can change a minute cap or a region. Fireflies documents rate limits for the API, dialers and bulk uploads, even though the meeting bot has no monthly cap on Pro and Business. Granola’s free history stops at 30 days. Export the audio before you cancel a seat.

Swiss German in the browser tool usually comes out as Standard German. The Mac app does not offer dialect spelling either.

For structured minutes rather than a raw transcript, see how Vemoir fills decisions and actions in the record view.

Want meeting capture without inviting a bot and without an upload? Vemoir records from the Mac menu bar. The App Store listing is the purchase. Pricing shows the figure for your storefront.

Frequently asked questions

What is the closest Fireflies.ai alternative without a bot?

Granola, Jamie, MacWhisper and Vemoir all advertise capture without a bot joining the call. Only Vemoir and MacWhisper default to on-Mac transcription. Granola and Jamie process audio in their cloud, per their own pages.

Is there a free Fireflies.ai alternative?

Fathom, tl;dv, Otter, Granola and Fireflies itself offer free tiers with different limits. MacWhisper has a free Mac tier. Vemoir sells a one-time Mac app for live capture. /tools/transcribe-recording is a free after-the-call trial in the browser, not a bot notetaker.

Can I use a Fireflies.ai alternative offline?

Vemoir and MacWhisper support offline workflows once local models are installed. Cloud notetakers generally need network access during the meeting.

Does Fireflies always send a bot to my meeting?

Fireflies documents a calendar notetaker that joins live meetings, and a Chrome extension that records without the bot (Fireflies pricing, October 2026). Check the current product pages before you assume bot-free capture.

How does pricing compare to Fireflies?

Fireflies charges per seat on paid plans (pricing, October 2026). Vemoir is a one-time purchase. Otter, Fathom, tl;dv and Jamie use subscription seat models. MacWhisper Pro is a one-time license on the vendor site.

Can I import an old Fireflies recording into another tool?

Most alternatives accept audio or video files within plan limits. Vemoir imports common formats such as MP3, M4A and WAV on the Mac. Check each vendor’s import caps.

Do these tools replace legal or compliance review?

No. Read each vendor’s privacy and security documentation, align with your organization’s policies, and decide retention and sharing rules yourself.

Which Fireflies.ai alternative is best for Swiss or EU teams?

Jamie emphasizes EU residency on its site. tl;dv describes EU hosting and GDPR-oriented controls. Local Mac processing with Vemoir or MacWhisper keeps files on the device unless you export or enable cloud AI. Pick based on your threat model, not on marketing labels alone.

Will switching tools delete my Fireflies history?

Fireflies describes data ownership and deletion controls on its security pages. Export what you need before you cancel, and verify deletion steps on Fireflies’ site.

Can Vemoir summarize meetings like Fireflies?

Yes, on the Mac. Vemoir generates minutes, decisions, action items and a follow-up draft locally, and you can ask questions against the transcript (Ask Vemoir).

If local capture fits your next client call, start with how Vemoir works or try the App Store listing.