6 Best Fireflies Alternatives in 2026

Full disclosure: I make Humla, one of the options below, so treat me as biased. I've tried to be straight about where the others are the better call.

First, an outdated premise to correct

Most "Fireflies alternative" lists open by telling you a bot barges into every call. As of July 2026 that's out of date. Fireflies' desktop app can record without a bot at all, capturing system audio directly from your machine — their own knowledge base has a page called How to Record Meetings Without a Bot, and it also covers in-person conversations and phone calls.

So "it puts a bot in my call" is no longer a reason to leave on its own. Two things are worth knowing, though. The bot is still the default path — connect your calendar, enable auto-join, and the Notetaker attends everything with a conferencing link, visible in the participant list. And botless or not, the recording goes to Fireflies' cloud either way. There is no on-device mode.

The thing people actually get burned by

Fireflies' default for meeting recap emails is "Everyone on the invite" — every calendar invitee, internal and external. You can change it: the dropdown offers "Only me and participants from my Fireflies team" or "Only me", documented in their recap email settings. But it's a default, and defaults are what happen while you're busy.

Whether that's a feature or a problem depends entirely on who's on the invite. For an internal standup, great — everyone gets the notes with zero effort, and it's clearly good for Fireflies' growth too. For a client call where your own notes include "they're clearly shopping us against a cheaper agency," an AI summary auto-mailing itself to the client is a genuinely bad afternoon. If you take external meetings, check that setting before your next one regardless of whether you switch tools.

Why people look for a Fireflies alternative

• Recaps auto-share by default. As above. Fixable in settings, but it's on until you turn it off.
• It's cloud-only. Meetings live on Fireflies' servers, in both bot and botless modes. There's no local option.
• Storage caps bite before transcription does. Transcription is unlimited on every tier, including Free — but storage isn't. Free gives 800 minutes per seat, Pro 8,000; hit the cap and old recordings age out.
• AI features run on credits. AskFred, Soundbites and AI Skills draw on a monthly credit allowance rather than being unlimited, on paid tiers too. If AI querying is the reason you're there, check the allowance against how you'd actually use it.
• It's per-seat, from $10/user/month up to $39 on Enterprise.
• It's closed-source, so "your calls are safe with us" is a promise you can't audit.

If none of that bothers you, Fireflies is a genuinely strong product with the best integration catalog on this list. Stay. If one does, here's where to go.

The short answer

• Pick Humla if the cloud is the problem — free, open source, and able to run 100% on your Mac.
• Pick Granola if you want a clean no-bot notepad without Fireflies' CRM machinery.
• Pick Fathom if you want a generous free cloud tier with video.
• Pick Otter if you want the closest like-for-like: same cloud-plus-automation shape, heavier on sales tooling.
• Pick tl;dv if you want a searchable shared library and a huge integration count.
• Pick Meetily if you need Windows, or the largest open-source community.

How they compare

Fireflies figures are as of July 2026. Their pricing page was unreachable from where I was working, so those numbers come from public pricing trackers that agree with each other rather than from Fireflies directly — worth confirming on their pricing page before you commit. Other prices reflect each product's standard plans as of July 2026; check their sites for the latest.

1. Humla — free, local, open source, nothing auto-shared

Humla is the answer if your objection is "why is every client call sitting on someone else's server, mailing itself around?" You take freeform notes, the app records mic + system audio on your Mac, and it writes an AI summary — with nothing joining the call, ever, and no recap emailed anywhere. The summary goes where you send it, which is sometimes nowhere.

Transcription and summaries can run entirely on-device via Whisper and a local model, it does offline speaker labels, and it keeps a local audio file. There's also chat over your whole note history — ask "what did we promise Acme in the kickoff?" and get a cited answer, which is the closest thing here to Fireflies' AskFred, except it can run fully offline and isn't metered by credits. It's free and MIT-licensed, so nothing leaves your Mac unless you send it.

Choose it when: you want private, local notes with no per-seat price and no cloud requirement. Tradeoff: macOS-only (Apple Silicon), no mobile app, and no CRM integrations — if Fireflies' 100+ integrations are load-bearing for you, this is not a swap. Full Humla vs Fireflies.

2. Granola — a clean notepad, minus the CRM machinery

Granola is the closest thing to "Fireflies for people who just want good notes." A no-bot AI notepad that augments what you type, with none of the RevOps automation. Nothing gets emailed round on your behalf.

The catch: cloud-only, closed-source, priced per seat at $14–35/user/month — more than Humla Cloud — and speaker attribution gets shaky in 3+ person calls.

Choose it when: you want a polished no-bot notepad and never wanted the automations. Tradeoff: cloud-only and pricier than Humla.

3. Fathom — the most generous free cloud tier

Fathom's free tier is unusually good: unlimited cloud recordings with video, where Fireflies' free tier caps you at 800 minutes of storage. Its botless mode is Mac-only.

Be clear on what "free" means, though — it's a free cloud tier, not a cheaper product. Fathom's paid plans run $15–34/user/month, above Humla's free app and $5/user/month Cloud. So if price is what's pushing you off Fireflies, Humla is the cheaper answer, not Fathom.

Choose it when: you want an unlimited hosted free tier with video. Tradeoff: cloud, not local; still trains on de-identified data unless you opt out.

4. Otter.ai — the closest like-for-like

If what you like about Fireflies is the shape of it — cloud library, automations, integrations, mobile, a chat assistant over your meetings — Otter is the nearest swap. It also has a botless desktop app now (macOS 12.3+ / Windows 10+), so on the bot question the two have converged.

It's the pricier of the pair at $17–30/user/month against Fireflies' $10–39, and it has leaned hard into sales/RevOps tooling — an AI sales agent, CRM automations — which is either exactly what you want or a lot of product you'll never open. Its free tier is tighter than Fireflies' too: 300 minutes a month and 3 lifetime file imports.

Choose it when: you want Fireflies' shape with stronger sales tooling. Tradeoff: cloud-only, closed-source, and generally more expensive. Full Humla vs Otter.

5. tl;dv — shared library and deep integrations

tl;dv records without a bot via its desktop app, saves to its cloud, and leans hard into a searchable shared library plus sales-coaching features. Its integration count is the one number on this list that competes with Fireflies' catalog.

Choose it when: you want a hosted, searchable team library and lots of integrations. Tradeoff: cloud-based, not local; paid plans $18–29/user/month.

6. Meetily — open source, and it runs on Windows

A free, open-source, bot-free notetaker with local transcription that also runs on Windows (Linux from source), with the largest community of the open-source options — the one thing here that isn't Mac-only. Speaker diarization isn't shipped yet, and some features sit behind a $10/user/month Pro tier.

Choose it when: you need Windows, or want the biggest open-source community. Tradeoff: rougher edges than the commercial options, and no speaker labels yet.

The short version

If your real objection to Fireflies is the cloud or the auto-emailed recap, go local: Humla (free, on your Mac) or Meetily (also Windows). Want the clean-notes half without the automation? Granola. Want the same shape with different tooling? Otter or tl;dv. Want a hosted free tier with video? Fathom — though on paid plans Humla Cloud at $5/seat undercuts it.

And whichever way you go: if you stay on Fireflies, go and check who your recap emails are going to.

If you're weighing the switch specifically, I keep an honest Fireflies alternative guide and a full Humla vs Fireflies breakdown. There's also a no-bot roundup if the bot is your sticking point, and a Mac-local roundup if privacy is.

Download Humla for macOS — free, open source, no bot, runs on your Mac.