7 Best Fireflies.ai Alternatives for Meeting Notes (2026)
Markus Maila, CTO & Co-founderFireflies.ai is a popular meeting intelligence platform with strong CRM integrations, but it's not the best fit for every team. If you need in-person meeting support, more affordable pricing, better privacy controls, or a simpler tool without the enterprise complexity, there are strong alternatives available. We compared the top options.
Why people look for Fireflies.ai alternatives
Fireflies.ai has carved out a strong position in the sales and revenue team space, but several common complaints drive teams to look elsewhere.
No in-person meeting support: Fireflies requires a virtual meeting platform (Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, or Webex) to function. Its bot joins the call as a participant. If your team meets face-to-face in conference rooms, at events, or at client offices, Fireflies can't help.
Bot joining meetings: Fireflies' recording bot (Fred) appears as a visible participant in your meeting. Some teams and clients find this intrusive, especially in sensitive conversations. There's no way to record without the bot.
Expensive for teams: Fireflies Pro starts at $18/user/month, and the Business plan is $29/user/month. For a 15-person team on the Business plan, that's $435/month. Sales-specific features like conversation intelligence push costs even higher.
US data hosting: All Fireflies data is processed on AWS in the United States. European organizations with GDPR requirements often need an alternative with EU data residency.
Overbuilt for simple needs: If you just need meeting transcription and summaries, Fireflies' extensive feature set (CRM sync, topic tracking, sentiment analysis, conversation intelligence) adds complexity without value.
1. Menutes: best for in-person meetings and EU data hosting
Menutes is purpose-built for teams that meet in person. It captures audio from any device microphone and delivers structured meeting minutes with decisions, action items, and speaker identification. Everything is hosted on EU infrastructure.
Key advantages over Fireflies.ai:
In-person meeting recording is a core feature. Record conference room meetings, workshops, client visits, and impromptu discussions from your phone or laptop.
No bot or participant added to your meetings. Menutes captures system audio directly, keeping your attendee list clean.
EU data hosting with native GDPR compliance. Unlike Fireflies' US-based AWS infrastructure, Menutes processes and stores everything on European servers.
50+ language support for transcription and AI summaries, compared to Fireflies' English-centric summaries.
Significantly lower pricing: €9/user/month for teams versus Fireflies' $29/user/month Business plan. A 15-person team saves over $300/month.
Best for: Teams with in-person meetings, European organizations, multilingual teams, and organizations that want straightforward meeting documentation without CRM complexity.
2. Otter.ai: best for real-time collaboration during meetings
Otter.ai focuses on live, collaborative transcription where team members can highlight, comment, and react to transcript content in real time during the meeting.
Key advantages over Fireflies.ai:
Real-time collaborative features let multiple team members interact with the transcript as it's being generated, adding comments and highlights.
Live captioning works across Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams with real-time subtitles.
OtterPilot summary feature delivers AI summaries immediately after the meeting ends.
Limitations: No in-person meeting support. US-based data hosting. Business plan is $20/user/month. Free tier limited to 600 minutes/month. Bot joins meetings as a participant.
Best for: Teams that want to interact with transcripts in real time, organizations that use live captions for accessibility.
3. tl;dv: best free plan with video highlight clips
tl;dv combines meeting transcription with video clip creation. Its generous free plan makes it an attractive starting point for teams evaluating Fireflies alternatives.
Key advantages over Fireflies.ai:
Unlimited free recordings on Zoom and Google Meet, significantly more generous than Fireflies' limited free credits.
Video highlight clips let you clip and share key meeting moments as short videos, perfect for sharing customer feedback with product teams.
Simpler interface without the CRM and conversation intelligence complexity that makes Fireflies overwhelming for non-sales teams.
Limitations: No in-person meeting support. Limited CRM integrations compared to Fireflies. Bot joins meetings as a participant. Data processed outside the EU.
Best for: Teams on a budget that want a simple transcription tool with video sharing, organizations that don't need Fireflies' sales-specific features.
4. Fathom: best for distraction-free Zoom summaries
Fathom takes a minimalist approach to meeting transcription, delivering clean AI summaries for Zoom calls without the feature bloat of enterprise tools like Fireflies.
Key advantages over Fireflies.ai:
Free unlimited plan for individual Zoom users. No credit limits, no feature gates on the core transcription experience.
Distraction-free design that focuses on delivering clear, actionable summaries rather than overwhelming dashboards with analytics.
Fast summary generation with highlighted action items and key decisions, available within minutes of a call ending.
Limitations: Primarily Zoom-focused (limited Google Meet and Teams support). No in-person recording. Team features require a paid plan at $32/user/month, which is actually more expensive than Fireflies Pro. No CRM integrations on the free plan.
Best for: Individuals who want free, clean meeting summaries for Zoom calls without enterprise complexity.
5. Avoma: best for revenue teams needing deal intelligence
If your reason for leaving Fireflies is to get more from your sales call intelligence, Avoma provides deeper revenue analytics with deal tracking and coaching scorecards.
Key advantages over Fireflies.ai:
Deal intelligence with pipeline analytics that connects meeting insights directly to deal stages and revenue outcomes.
Coaching scorecards let sales managers evaluate rep performance across specific conversation criteria.
Topic tracking identifies competitor mentions, pricing discussions, and objection patterns across your entire meeting history.
Limitations: Significantly more expensive starting at $49/user/month. No in-person meeting support. US-based data hosting. Overkill for non-sales teams.
Best for: Sales organizations that need deeper conversation intelligence than Fireflies provides, revenue teams with coaching programs.
6. Grain: best for sharing video moments with stakeholders
Grain focuses on creating and sharing video highlights from meetings. If your primary need is showing stakeholders what happened in a meeting rather than reading a summary, Grain's video-first approach stands out.
Key advantages over Fireflies.ai:
Video-first approach makes it easy to clip and share specific meeting moments with context that text summaries can't capture.
Shareable highlight reels combine multiple clips into a curated summary video, useful for executive briefings or customer research presentations.
Simpler pricing and interface compared to Fireflies' complex feature tiers.
Limitations: No in-person meeting support. English-focused. The video-first approach means less emphasis on text-based documentation. Bot joins meetings as a participant.
Best for: Teams that communicate primarily through video, customer research teams sharing user feedback, sales teams creating call highlight reels.
7. Jamie: best for privacy-focused on-device transcription
Jamie processes meeting audio locally on your device, making it the strongest privacy-focused alternative to Fireflies' cloud-based approach.
Key advantages over Fireflies.ai:
On-device processing means your meeting audio never leaves your computer. For organizations with strict data handling policies, this eliminates cloud-based privacy concerns.
Works with any audio source without requiring platform-specific integrations or bots. Any meeting, any app.
No bot joining your meetings. Captures system audio silently from your device.
Limitations: Requires sufficient local computing power. Language support is more limited (15+ languages vs. Fireflies' 69+). Starts at €24/month. Limited team collaboration features. No CRM integrations.
Best for: Privacy-conscious individuals, organizations with strict data governance policies, freelancers using multiple platforms.
Comparison table: Fireflies.ai alternatives at a glance
Here's how all seven alternatives compare on the features that matter most when switching from Fireflies.ai.
| Tool | In-person | CRM | Data hosting | Free plan | Paid from | Bot-free |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Menutes | Yes | Email sharing | EU | 5 hrs/month | €9/month | Yes |
| Otter.ai | No | Limited | US | 600 min/month | $20/user/mo | No |
| tl;dv | No | Limited | US | Unlimited | $25/user/mo | No |
| Fathom | No | Zoom only | US | Unlimited (Zoom) | $32/user/mo | Yes |
| Avoma | No | Salesforce, HubSpot | US | None | $49/user/mo | No |
| Grain | No | Limited | US | Limited | $19/user/mo | No |
| Jamie | No | None | On-device | Limited | €24/month | Yes |
Which Fireflies.ai alternative should you choose?
Your ideal Fireflies alternative depends on why you're looking to switch.
If the bot joining meetings is the problem: Menutes, Fathom, and Jamie all record without adding a participant to your call.
If you need in-person meeting recording: Menutes is the only option that handles face-to-face meetings natively.
If pricing is the issue: Menutes (€9/user/month for teams) costs 69% less than Fireflies Business. tl;dv and Fathom offer generous free plans for smaller needs.
If you need EU data hosting: Menutes is the only cloud-based alternative with EU infrastructure.
If you need deeper sales intelligence: Avoma provides more advanced revenue analytics and coaching tools.
If you want video sharing: Grain and tl;dv specialize in video clip creation and sharing.
If privacy is your top priority: Jamie's on-device processing keeps audio completely local.
For teams that want comprehensive meeting documentation across in-person and virtual meetings, with EU hosting, multilingual support, and affordable pricing, Menutes is the strongest all-around alternative to Fireflies.ai.
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