Fireflies.ai vs Granola

Fireflies.ai is an AI meeting assistant founded in 2016 and based in San Francisco. Its bot, called Fred, joins calls on Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex and other platforms to record, transcribe and analyze conversations, and it can also process uploaded audio and video files. Transcription supports more than 100 languages, including Turkish.

After each meeting Fireflies produces a summary, action items, outline and topic trackers, and AskFred lets users ask questions about one meeting or across their whole meeting history. Conversation intelligence shows talk time, sentiment and question counts, which sales and customer success teams use for coaching. Notes and tasks can be pushed automatically into Salesforce, HubSpot, Asana, Notion, Slack and many other tools. The free plan offers limited transcription, AI summaries and storage, while paid seats on Pro, Business and Enterprise add unlimited summaries, more storage, video recording, analytics, SSO and compliance options.

Fireflies fits teams that want a searchable archive of meetings at a low per-seat cost. Accuracy depends on audio quality and accents, and some participants dislike a bot joining the call. Otter.ai is a close competitor focused on live transcription, Gong is a far more expensive revenue intelligence platform, and Granola or Krisp take notes without a bot by capturing audio on the user's device.

Recent additions include a mobile app, AI apps that generate specific outputs such as sales notes or interview scorecards, and real-time AI assistance during meetings.

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.