The best alternatives to Fireflies
Fireflies might not be the right fit: the price, a missing feature or a payment model you don't like. These are the closest alternatives in our catalog, ordered by rating, with the full review of each one.
Why look for a Fireflies alternative
It transcribes well on clean audio, hooks into Zoom, Meet and Teams, and now adds Daily Briefs, which pulls tasks from Gmail, Outlook and Slack into one daily summary, even on the free plan. What the network keeps repeating against it is billing: the trial rolls into a paid plan on its own if not cancelled, and AI credits, which now also power Daily Briefs and the personal assistant, are billed from $5 a month with no refunds. Its own documentation backs that mechanism, so it isn't just perception.
What its own users repeat in the August 7, 2026 sweep:
- There are repeated accounts of unexpected charges and a hard cancellation, and its own documentation describes the mechanism: AI credits are billed from $5 a month if not cancelled when the trial ends, and are non-refundable (strong theme)
- It fails to record more often than it should: meetings that go unrecorded, transcripts that never generate and an app that crashes (strong theme)
- The free plan stores 400 minutes per team, caps each recording at 2 hours and captures no video, which starts on paid plans (strong theme)
- The $10 per seat requires paying a year up front: month to month it is 18 (present theme)
- Accuracy wobbles with strong accents and two-language conversations, though some voices disagree (present theme)
- New features like Daily Briefs, Daily Digest and Meeting Prep also run on dynamically priced AI credits, so usage gets harder to predict the more features you use (present theme)
Best alternatives to Fireflies
Records and transcribes your meetings in 38 languages with the most generous free tier in the segment, and translates the notes into the language people spoke.
The only tool in the segment that does not merely detect a meeting’s action items but assigns them to an owner and organises them.
The notepad that records your computer audio without putting a robot in the call and fills out the notes you are already taking.
The bot that joins your meetings on its own, transcribes live and leaves the notes with the action items.
The cheapest entry in the segment, with a Spanish-language site and an allowance counted in transcription hours.
What the internet says about each alternative
Fathom 3.9/5 · Free + from $16
Little about the product moved this week, with one real exception: Fathom opened pre-orders for its first official mobile app, «Fathom AI Notetaker», listed on the App Store by Fathom Video Inc. with a launch planned for August 17, 2026, and the same help-centre article that a year ago warned no store app was legitimate now links to that pre-order. It is not the app yet: as of today, August 11, it still cannot be used, and the same store still hosts a copy from an unrelated developer, «IN IT TO WIN IT LLC», with a review that calls it outright «Fake app», so Fathom's fraud warning keeps its reason to exist. Everything else in the file holds without a verifiable change: the free tier still caps advanced summaries at five calls a month across 38 languages, the official pricing page has not moved a dollar from last week, CRM syncing is still capped per email domain outside the higher plans, and Capterra still shows 5.0 across 809 reviews with none newly logged so far in August. An independent tldv.io review, unaffiliated with Fathom, sums the product up as «reliable but bland, like Notepad with a mic», which lines up with the already-known complaint that its summaries are accurate but show no judgement about what mattered.
Where it wins: The free tier records and transcribes with no declared limit across 38 languages, which is more than any direct rival in the segment offers Where it slips: The free plan cuts advanced summaries off at the fifth call of the month, and that is precisely what defines this segment
Circleback 3.9/5 · Free trial · from $20.83
Circleback remains the only tool in this segment that assigns action items to an owner instead of merely detecting them, and this week it kept expanding that ground: on July 28 it added in-app actions inside Notion, Linear, Asana, Attio, HubSpot, PostHog, Ashby and Intercom, and on August 3 it put Circleback inside Slack's agent panel with answers that cite their source. None of that changes the underlying balance. Price and scale remain the same objections: it still has no free plan, it is still the priciest entry in the segment from $20.83 per user per month annually, and its App Store base has barely grown from 213 to 214 ratings in a week. The ninety-day independent test that called it competent but undifferentiated against Granola and Fireflies is still the harshest reference in this file, and nothing published this week contradicts it.
Where it wins: It assigns action items to an owner rather than merely detecting them, which is where meeting follow-up actually breaks Where it slips: There is no free plan of any kind, only a trial and read-only seats, and it is the most visible complaint on its App Store listing
Granola 3.9/5 · Free + from $14
Granola remains the tool in this segment that strays furthest from the mould: it sends no robot into the video call, captures the computer's own audio and fills out the notes the user is already taking. This week there is no dated fact that changes pricing, core features or support, so the five axes hold at the same level as the previous sweep. What does move is the mood of the network: on 5 and 6 August 2026 the Chamberlain v. Granola class action, filed 30 July in California over recording without all-party consent, remained without a response from the company, and a law firm cited it as an example of a growing wave of litigation against bot-free notetakers. On the product side, the documentation confirms a new speaker tags feature, but it only labels people by name on Zoom for macOS and on Google Meet through its extension, and it breaks once three or more people are speaking, so the multi-participant room problem is still not fully solved.
Where it wins: It puts no robot in the meeting: it captures the computer's own audio, so no extra participant shows up in the list Where it slips: Class action filed on 30 July 2026 in California, case 3:26-cv-07926-EMC, over recording without all-party consent. It remains without a company response and no court has ruled
Otter.ai 3.7/5 · Free + from $8.33
What the network repeats in its favour is still the mechanical part: the bot joins Zoom, Meet and Teams on its own, transcribes live, identifies who is speaking and leaves a summary with decisions and action items without anyone taking notes, backed by 4.8 out of 5 across 70,168 App Store votes. Added to that is a pattern repeating on Trustpilot between July 27 and August 6, 2026: customers who dispute an unwanted charge or ask to cancel get a fast refund with a named support response. The underlying objections remain the same three: the federal class action had a hearing on August 3, 2026 and remains unresolved, the transcription allowance runs out sooner than it looks, and the Better Business Bureau profile carries 29 complaints closed in twelve months. Anyone working in Spanish should know the interface and support remain English only.
Where it wins: The agent joins Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams meetings on its own and transcribes live with nobody starting it Where it slips: A consolidated federal class action over recording without all-party consent, and to date no court has ruled: the August 3, 2026 hearing had the judge showing skepticism toward Otter's motion to dismiss
MeetGeek 3.6/5 · Free + from $9.99
MeetGeek remains the cheapest one-for-one substitute for Otter and Fireflies, from $9.99 per user per month billed annually, and the best served tool in the segment for Spanish-speaking buyers. This week there is no dated event that changes the picture from eight days ago: the price, the hourly quota and the reliability complaints are exactly the same as then. It still weighs against it that the model runs on transcription hours that empty fast, that verified customers report the bot failing to join or taking the wrong notes, and that the site's own markup gives itself a 4.6 out of 450 rating that no independent platform backs.
Where it wins: It is by a distance the cheapest entry in the segment and does the whole job, so it competes head on with the reference tools Where it slips: Verified customers report the bot failing to join some meetings and taking the wrong notes in others, which is the worst possible failure here
Comparison table
| Tool | Price | Free trial | Platforms | Rating | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fireflies | Free + from $10 | Yes | Web, iOS, Android, Chrome | VisitFireflies (opens in a new tab) | |
| Fathom | Free + from $16 | Yes | Web, Chrome | VisitFathom (opens in a new tab) | |
| Circleback | Free trial · from $20.83 | Yes | Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android | VisitCircleback (opens in a new tab) | |
| Granola | Free + from $14 | No | Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android | VisitGranola (opens in a new tab) | |
| Otter.ai | Free + from $8.33 | No | Web, iOS, Android, Chrome | VisitOtter.ai (opens in a new tab) | |
| MeetGeek | Free + from $9.99 | Yes | Web, iOS, Android, Chrome | VisitMeetGeek (opens in a new tab) |
Still unsure? Read the full review of Fireflies?