Fathom vs Granola

Fathom is an AI meeting assistant founded by Richard White, who previously founded UserVoice. It joins Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams calls, records and transcribes them, and produces summaries with action items within seconds of the meeting ending. Its generous free plan made it one of the most widely used notetakers, especially among sales and customer success teams.

The free plan offers unlimited recording, transcription and storage for individuals, with a monthly cap on advanced AI summaries. Premium removes that cap and adds Ask Fathom, which answers questions across your meeting history. Team and Business plans add shared call libraries, automatic CRM sync to HubSpot and Salesforce, deal views and coaching features for sales managers. During calls you can highlight moments with one click, and afterwards create shareable clips, which is useful for product feedback and rep coaching.

Fathom fits individuals who want reliable free notes and sales teams that want call data flowing into the CRM without manual work. A bot visibly joins the call, which some participants dislike, and although Fathom transcribes dozens of languages, summary quality is strongest in English. Granola records without a bot for people who prefer a lighter footprint, Otter.ai and Fireflies.ai offer broader transcription and integrations, and Gong is the enterprise choice for revenue intelligence. For most people starting with AI notes, Fathom's free plan is the easiest place to begin.

Granola is an AI notepad for meetings built by a London-based startup founded by Chris Pedregal and Sam Stephenson. Unlike Otter, Fireflies or Fathom, it does not send a bot into the call: it captures your device audio from Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Slack huddles or a phone call, while you type short notes in a simple editor.

After the meeting, Granola combines your rough notes with the transcript and produces clean, structured notes that keep your emphasis, filling in details, decisions and next steps. Templates shape the output for sales calls, user interviews, hiring loops or 1:1s, and AI chat answers questions across a single meeting or your whole history. Notes can be shared by link or sent to Notion, Slack, HubSpot, Attio or Linear, and calendar integration starts recording on time. The free Basic plan keeps only a limited note history, Business is priced per user and unlocks full history, integrations and shared team folders, and Enterprise adds SSO and admin controls.

Granola launched on Mac in 2024 and later added Windows and iPhone apps. It fits founders, investors, recruiters and salespeople who spend the day on external calls and dislike recording bots. It shows a live transcript during the call but never stores the audio, so there is no recording to play back later, and compliance-heavy teams may need the audit and retention features of Gong or Otter Business. Fathom is a strong free alternative when a visible bot is acceptable, and Notion AI meeting notes suit teams already living in Notion.