Fireflies alternatives for meeting notes: free plans, who gets told, and what users report.
Of the 79 Fireflies users we read, 17 say its bot joined meetings uninvited, spread to other people’s meetings or was hard to remove. For meeting notes, the closest Fireflies alternatives are Fathom, Granola and Otter. Fathom records free without a monthly limit, Granola joins no call, and Otter’s free plan covers 300 minutes a month. Fathom, Granola and Otter document no due date on action items.
Best for: founders on Fireflies’ free plan, or tired of its bot, who want a different notetaker for their own calls.
We make GameTape, a Mac app for founders. We did not run these tools. This page draws on each vendor’s pages and 397 public user reports, read on 19 October 2026.
Why people look for a Fireflies alternative.
The bot travels, the recap emails go to everyone, and the free plan is hard to pin down.
Fireflies’ help center says auto-join is “set to All meetings by default”, and its recap email goes by default to “Everyone on the invite”. “Suddenly that AI is adding itself to every meeting that user is in and then it spreads to the rest of Teams,” an r/sysadmin user wrote in October 2025. Seventeen users report the bot joining uninvited, spreading or staying hard to remove. Six say recap emails reached attendees who never signed up.
Thirteen say their organisation banned or blocked Fireflies, or failed it on a security review. Seven report charges they did not expect, mostly AI credits on top of the plan price. Fireflies’ own guide says paid users who run out of credits are moved to a $5 monthly credit tier automatically, which they can turn off.
The free plan is hard to read because Fireflies’ own pages disagree. They agree on 400 minutes of storage and paid downloads. For accounts opened since 1 September 2026, the bot transcribes three meetings unless you turn on auto-join (Fireflies help center). One page calls the 20 AI credits one-time and another says monthly, and the pages give four different answers on summaries.
When Fireflies is still the right call.
Its no-bot desktop mode answers the main complaint.
Twenty-one users say they are satisfied or would recommend Fireflies, and six call its summaries useful. Its desktop Take Notes mode records without a bot, with its notices on by default, though that mode labels speakers only as Speaker 1 and Speaker 2 (Fireflies help center). If your team already runs its meetings through Fireflies, Pro costs $18 a month, or $10 a month billed yearly.
Fireflies alternatives at a glance.
From each vendor’s pricing and help pages, checked 19 October 2026.
| How it captures | Free plan | Paid from | Visible to others | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fireflies | A bot, “Fireflies.ai Notetaker”. A desktop mode records without one | 3 transcribed meetings unless auto-join is on; 400 minutes of storage | Pro $18 a month, or $10 billed yearly | The named bot; a chat message when turned on |
| Fathom | A bot, or bot-free capture on some Macs | Unlimited recordings; advanced summaries on 5 calls a month | Premium $20 a month, or $16 billed yearly | The bot and a banner; bot-free posts a chat notice |
| Granola | No bot. A Mac or Windows app captures your computer’s audio | Your last 30 days of notes | Business $14 per user a month | Nothing, unless you turn on its chat message or video badge |
| Otter | A bot, “Otter Notetaker”, joins the call. A desktop app can record without one | 300 minutes a month, 30 per conversation, your 25 latest conversations | Pro $16.99 a month, or $8.33 billed yearly | The named bot and a chat message |
We read the docs and the reviews.
We did not run Fireflies, Fathom, Granola or Otter ourselves.
On 19 October 2026 we read each vendor’s pricing and help pages. Then we went through public posts by people who use the tools: Reddit threads, App Store and Software Advice reviews, Hacker News comments and independent YouTube reviews. G2, Capterra, TrustRadius and Product Hunt blocked our reader, so their reviews are missing.
We counted 79 people for Fireflies: 67 on Reddit, 7 Hacker News commenters and 5 YouTube reviewers. Otter had 164, Granola 93 and Fathom 61. We counted each person once per behaviour, and we left out vendor demos, sponsored videos and posts that promote another notetaker.
The counts show what people chose to write about. They are not rates. “Not counted” in the table below means we did not count that behaviour for that tool.
What users and reviewers report.
Each figure counts people. Fireflies 79, Fathom 61, Granola 93, Otter 164.
| What they report | Fireflies | Fathom | Granola | Otter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The bot joined meetings uninvited, or was hard to remove | 17 | None found | No bot | 13 uninvited; 17 hard to stop |
| Notes emailed to everyone on the invite | 6 | Not counted | Not counted | 13 |
| Their organisation blocked or banned it | 13 | Not counted | 3 | 21 |
| Billing problems or unexpected charges | 7 | None found | Not counted | 14 |
| Summaries useful | 6 | 17 | 13 | 24 |
| Summaries miss or invent details | 3 | 1 | 10 | 1 |
| Speakers wrong or not told apart | 1 | 1 | 9 | 7 |
| Action items with a due date | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Two Fireflies users name the gap that a transcript leaves. “We have accurate transcripts that nobody acts on. The notes are isolated from our project management tools,” one wrote on Reddit in November 2025. Fireflies does create tasks with an owner and a deadline you can edit. Still, none of the 397 users we read described any of these tools following an action item to done.
Three Fireflies alternatives, one by one.
Pick by what you want the tool to keep.
Fathom fits a founder who wants every call kept. The free plan records without a monthly limit, and 18 of its 61 users praise that. Free users get advanced summaries on five calls a month. Its bot shows in the participant list unless your Mac has the bot-free mode, which is still rolling out. Compare Granola and Fathom.
Granola fits a founder who wants nothing in the call. It runs on your Mac or Windows computer, starts when you open the meeting’s note and keeps no audio. Eleven of its 93 users say having no bot is why they chose it. Nine say it does not name or separate speakers. Basic shows your last 30 days of notes.
Otter is the closest match in shape: a calendar bot, a capped free plan and a live transcript link. It draws the same complaints: 13 of its 164 users report a bot that joined uninvited, and 21 IT admins say they blocked it. Basic locks each transcript after 30 minutes. See Otter AI alternatives.
After the notes: tracking what you promised.
We make GameTape. It costs more than any of these free plans and keeps track of what you promised.
GameTape is a Mac app for founders. It records the meetings it detects during your work hours. From each one you get who said each line, every promise with its owner and any date someone named, and coaching on your own part in the call.
Meeting review · Acme pricing call
For next time: Priya asked about price twice before you gave a number. Next call, give the number first, then ask what it has to cover.
Commitments
I owe
Send Priya the revised quote
Owed to me
Onboarding plan for Acme
Done
Send Acme the security one-pager
Closed by the tape · Sent to Priya · Tue Oct 14 4:10 pm
Illustrative. Dana is the founder using GameTape; the people and the call are made up.
A promise stays on your list until GameTape sees proof it is done, such as the email going out, or until you tick it off. If a name on the transcript is wrong, tap it and choose the right person; your fix overrides the model. You can stop taping any time to skip a meeting.
GameTape costs $95 a month. It runs on Mac only, sends no bot and emails no one on your invite.
Who gets told they’re being recorded.
Recording laws differ by place, and some require every participant’s consent.
| Tool | During the meeting | Before the meeting | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| Granola | No bot joins. An optional chat message goes out once, after another person joins; Google Meet needs Granola’s Chrome extension. An optional badge can show on your video. | No email | You set up each notice in Settings |
| Fathom, bot | The bot shows in the participant list, and a recording banner shows to everyone. | Consent email 24 hours ahead, when turned on, for an external meeting you host with one guest. None for same-day meetings. | Fathom says there is “no way to silently record” |
| Fathom, no bot (Mac) | A “Recording Notice” message in the meeting chat when recording starts, or in-app consent prompts. | Consent email 24 hours ahead for external scheduled meetings, when turned on | Fathom says participants are “always notified” |
| Otter | Otter Notetaker joins as a named participant and posts a chat message with a link to the live transcript. | An email to every calendar guest, when turned on | Not stated for individuals |
| Fireflies, bot | “Fireflies.ai Notetaker” shows in the participant list. A pinned chat message, when turned on. Where the platform asks everyone for recording consent, as Zoom can, one “No” stops the recording. | An email one hour ahead with a link to decline, when turned on | Not stated for the bot. Its no-bot desktop mode turns its notices on by default |
| GameTape | No bot joins. “Tell the room” posts one line in the chat, “I’m using GameTape to take notes on this call.”, once per meeting after someone else joins. Google Meet in Chrome and Zoom only. | No email | Off until you turn it on |
Checked 19 October 2026 against Granola’s notice guide, Fathom’s pages on recording without permission and consent emails, Otter’s recording notices, Fireflies’ pages on recording consent and bot and no-bot capture, and GameTape’s own settings.
Two Fireflies users say a meeting was recorded without notice. A host in California wrote in August 2026 that the meeting ended and they “received an email from Fireflies with a link to an audio recording AI transcript” (Reddit, r/legaltech). Fireflies’ chat message and one-hour email are settings, and the pages we read do not say whether they start on for the bot.
Straight answers.
Yes. Fathom Free records without a monthly limit, Granola Basic keeps your last 30 days of notes, and Otter Basic transcribes 300 minutes a month at up to 30 minutes a call. Each limits its AI features on the free plan.
Granola never sends a bot; it captures audio on your Mac or Windows computer. Fathom’s bot-free mode is rolling out on some Macs, and Otter’s desktop app can record without its bot. Fireflies’ own Take Notes mode also skips the bot. GameTape records on your Mac with no bot.
Fireflies lists 400 minutes of storage and puts downloads on paid plans. For accounts opened since 1 September 2026, its bot transcribes three meetings unless you turn on auto-join. Its pages disagree on whether the 20 AI credits are one-time or monthly.
The bots show in the participant list. Fireflies and Otter can also post a chat message and email guests, and Fathom’s bot shows a recording banner. Granola and GameTape send no bot; each has an optional chat message that you turn on yourself.
Fireflies creates tasks with an owner and a deadline you can edit. Fathom, Granola and Otter document no due date, and none of the 397 users we read described any of these tools following a promise to done. GameTape keeps each promise from a recorded meeting, with its owner and any date someone named, until it sees the work done or you tick it off.
No. We make GameTape, a Mac app that competes for some of the same founders. We built this page from each vendor’s pages and 397 public user reports read on 19 October 2026.
Know tomorrow morning what you promised today.
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