9 Fireflies.ai Alternatives Compared, 6 With No Meeting Bot (2026)

The best Fireflies.ai alternatives in 2026 are Granola, Otter.ai, Fathom, Jamie and Read AI for video calls, and ParrotNotes or a Plaud Note for meetings in a room. If the Fireflies bot is the problem, pick one of the six that never joins your call: ParrotNotes, Granola, Jamie, Otter's desktop app, the Plaud Note or Apple Voice Memos. If your meetings happen away from a laptop, you want one with a phone app that records the room, on iPhone and Android.

Every price and plan limit below was read on the vendor's own pricing page on November 7, 2026, and is linked in that tool's section.

One disclosure: ParrotNotes publishes this blog and is one of the nine. It gets the same format as everyone else, including what it doesn't do.

Fireflies alternatives: the quick pick

Prices are per person per month, in the vendor's own currency, read on each pricing page on 2026-11-07. Fireflies prices from its pricing plans article; see our Fireflies AI pricing breakdown for every plan.

Shortcut: Want Fireflies without the bot tile and nothing else? Try Fireflies' own desktop app first (next section). Want free and unlimited for Zoom? Fathom. Want the meetings that never touch a calendar? A phone app: ParrotNotes, Granola, Jamie or Otter.

Why people look for a Fireflies alternative

Most switchers give one of four reasons:

• The bot tile. A notetaker joining the call makes some clients ask questions or go quiet.
• Meetings in a room. Site visits, lunches and kitchen-table calls never touch a calendar, so a calendar bot never hears them.
• Free plan limits. Fireflies Free stores 400 minutes per seat in total, and its help centre says the allowance is "not per month", so it doesn't reset (storage article, checked 2026-11-07).
• Per-seat price. Pro is $18 a seat on monthly billing, or $10 billed yearly. Business is $29, or $19 yearly.

Do you need a Fireflies alternative at all?

Start here, because switching tools costs time. Fireflies' pricing page lists "Record using Chrome extension without Fireflies bot", a desktop app, and a "Fireflies mobile app (Android, iOS)".

The desktop app is the main bot-free route. Fireflies' help article on recording without a bot says it starts "capturing system audio from your device", for Zoom, Meet, Teams, WhatsApp, FaceTime and more. The same article lists what that mode gives up:

• No audio or video file. "System audio mode does not save separate audio or video files." You get the transcript and summary.
• Generic speaker names. "Speakers appear as Speaker 1 / Speaker 2 instead of named participants."
• No Sales Assist. It "requires the Fireflies.ai Notetaker (bot) to be present".

So if your meetings are mostly Zoom, Meet or Teams on a laptop, and you can live with those three, try the desktop app before you move anything. All checked on 2026-11-07.

If you want the recording itself, named speakers, a bigger free plan, or a tool built around the room rather than the calendar, keep reading.

Three ways to record a meeting without a bot

Every bot-free Fireflies alternative uses one of three capture methods. Knowing which one a tool uses tells you most of what you need.

1. Laptop audio capture. An app on your Mac or PC listens to your computer's audio: your microphone and the other people's voices coming out of the call. Nobody new joins the meeting. This is how Fireflies' desktop app, Granola, Jamie, Fathom's Mac mode and Otter's desktop app handle video calls.

2. The phone in the room. You put your phone on the table and it records the conversation around it. This covers the meetings that never touch a calendar: a site walk, a lunch, a sales call at a customer's kitchen table, a trade-show chat. ParrotNotes is built around this, and several laptop-first tools now have phone apps too.

3. A dedicated recorder. A separate device, like the Plaud Note, records and syncs to an app later. No laptop, no phone screen, but one more thing to carry and charge.

Most people need method 2 more than they think. A field rep may run six meetings a day and only one of them is on Zoom.

The 9 Fireflies alternatives, one by one

Grouped by how they capture. Each price was read on the linked page on 2026-11-07.

1. Granola: typed notes on video calls, no bot

Granola's pricing page lists "Bot-free, device-audio capture" and "Desktop, iOS, Android & Apple Watch apps" on every plan. The core product is a notepad: you type on your laptop during a call and Granola fills in the rest from the audio. Its iPhone help page says the app can capture conversations happening around you.

• Free plan: Basic, with 30 days of meeting history.
• Paid: Business $14 per user a month, Enterprise $35.
• Pick it if: you live in video calls and like typing your own notes.

More in our Granola vs Fireflies comparison.

2. Otter.ai: the cheapest yearly plan, bot or no bot

Otter sits in both camps, so read this carefully. Its pricing page describes a meeting agent that joins Zoom, Teams and Google Meet to write and share notes, which is a bot. But its desktop app for Mac and Windows says you can "record any conversation without a bot across Slack Huddles, Zoom, Google Meet, and in-person". iPhone and Android apps are on every plan.

• Free plan: Basic, 300 minutes a month, 30 minutes per conversation.
• Paid: Pro $16.99 a month or $8.33 billed yearly (1,200 minutes, 90 minutes per conversation). Business $30, or $19.99 yearly.
• Languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese.
• Pick it if: your calls are in English and you want the lowest yearly price.

More in our Otter vs Fireflies comparison.

3. Fathom: free, unlimited recordings for video calls

Fathom's pricing page calls its free plan "Free forever", with unlimited recordings and transcripts, and AI action items marked "limited use". Fathom normally joins your call as a bot, but its what's new page says bot-free capture is "Now live on Mac", with Windows "up next". The pricing page links an iOS app; we found no Android app.

• Free plan: unlimited recordings, limited AI extras.
• Paid: Premium $20 a month, or $16 billed yearly. Team $19 a user ($15 yearly), Business $34 ($25 yearly).
• Pick it if: you want free recording of Zoom, Meet or Teams and don't mind a bot on Windows.

More in Fathom vs Fireflies and our Fathom alternatives.

4. Jamie: no bot, EU hosting, 99+ languages

Jamie's homepage says it "runs directly on your device and does not require a meeting bot to join your calls" and "captures in-person meetings from your laptop or your phone". Its mobile app guide says the app is on iOS and Android and records in-person meetings, but "cannot record phone calls". The pricing page lists 99+ languages and EU hosting.

• Free plan: 10 meetings a month, 30 minutes each.
• Paid: Plus €21 a month billed yearly (€25 monthly) for 20 meetings up to 2 hours. Pro €39 yearly (€47 monthly), unlimited, up to 5 hours, per Jamie's plans page.
• Pick it if: your clients ask where the data is stored, or you meet in several languages.

More in our Jamie AI note taker review.

5. Read AI: meeting reports, with a bot

Read AI's pricing page says Read Assistant is added to Zoom, Teams or Meet meetings "to automatically take meeting notes", so it's a bot-style tool. It also lists iPhone and Android apps that "capture in-person meetings", and Windows and Mac apps, on the free plan.

• Free plan: 5 meeting transcripts and reports a month, meetings up to 1 hour.
• Paid: Pro $19.75 a month or $15 billed yearly. Enterprise $29.75 ($22.50 yearly).
• Pick it if: you want talk-time and engagement reports across your calls.

More in Read AI vs Fireflies.

6. tl;dv: free recording for video-call teams

tl;dv's homepage lists "Unlimited recordings & transcriptions in 30+ languages" on the free plan. Its FAQ says tl;dv "doesn't have a native mobile app yet", so it isn't a choice for meetings in a room.

• Free plan: unlimited recordings and transcripts, with AI notes limited.
• Paid: Pro €29 a seat monthly, or €18 billed yearly. Business €39, or €29 yearly, per its pricing page.
• Pick it if: your team records Google Meet, Zoom or Teams calls and wants a free starting point.

More in our tl;dv alternatives.

7. ParrotNotes: no bot, records the room on your phone

ParrotNotes is a phone app, on iPhone and Android, with a Mac app too. Nothing joins your call, and there's no calendar to connect. You tap record, put the phone on the table, and keep your attention on the person across from you. Recording keeps going with the screen locked.

When you stop, you get a transcript and an AI summary. AI-powered recordings add action items and key points. Pro adds drafted follow-up emails, speaker identification, 99+ languages with translation (speak Spanish, get an English transcript), and sales frameworks like BANT, MEDDIC and SPIN.

• Free plan: 100 minutes a month, recordings up to 30 minutes, an AI summary on every recording and 5 AI-powered recordings a month (pricing).
• Paid: Pro $19.99 a month, or $14.99 a month billed yearly, with 3,000 minutes a month and recordings up to 3 hours.
• What it doesn't do: it doesn't join Zoom or Teams calls or record from your calendar. For a desk full of video calls, Granola, Otter or Fathom fit better.
• Pick it if: most of your meetings happen in a room, a car park or a customer's site.

Get ParrotNotes free on your iPhone or Android phone and record your next in-person meeting. The full in-person workflow is in our guide to sales call recording software, and the head-to-head is ParrotNotes vs Fireflies.

8. Plaud Note: a separate recorder

The Plaud Note is a card-sized recorder at $159 that switches between phone-call and in-person recording and transcribes through the Plaud app. It comes with the free Starter plan, 300 minutes a month.

• Paid: Pro $17.99 a month, or $8.33 a month billed yearly, for 1,200 minutes. Unlimited $29.99 a month, or $20 yearly, per Plaud's plan page.
• Pick it if: you want a device that does nothing but record.

More in our Plaud Note review.

9. Apple Voice Memos: free on iPhone

Voice Memos is free and never joins anything. Apple's iPhone User Guide says transcription works on iPhone 12 or later in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Chinese, and isn't available in all countries or regions (checked 2026-11-01). You get a transcript. The summary, action items and follow-up email are yours to write.

For more recorder apps, see our guide to the best AI voice recorder apps.

What the other side of the table sees

This is the question the bot really raises. Your client doesn't care which app you use. They care whether something unexpected shows up in their meeting, and whether they were told. Here's what each bot-free option does, checked on the vendors' pages on 2026-11-07.

Sources: Fireflies' consent and notifications article and the vendor pages linked above. "Whatever you tell them" means the pages we checked don't describe a built-in participant notice.

Read the fourth column twice. Bot-free doesn't mean invisible to the law. Fireflies' own article says that if you turn its notices off, "you are responsible for informing participants that the meeting is being captured". The same is true of every tool in the table.

In the United States, federal law (18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d)) allows recording where you are "a party to the communication" or one party has given prior consent. Some states require every party's consent; our guide to one-party consent states lists them, and other countries have their own rules. This isn't legal advice.

The habit that covers most situations: say "Mind if I record so I don't miss anything?" before you tap the button.

The bot-free checklist: six questions before you switch

Run any Fireflies alternative through these six questions during a free trial. Each takes a minute, and together they catch the surprises that show up in week three.

1. Does anything appear in the participant list? Open a test call with a colleague and look. If a tile or a name appears, it's a bot, whatever the marketing says.
2. Does it need your calendar? Tools that auto-join usually ask for calendar access. A bot-free recorder you start by hand doesn't need it.
3. Does it keep the audio? Some bot-free modes keep only the transcript. If you ever need to replay a tone of voice or check an exact number, you want the recording.
4. Does it name the speakers? "Speaker 1 said we'd ship in March" is less useful in a dispute than a name.
5. Does it work without a laptop open? Try it at a counter, in a car park or across a café table. If the answer is "open your laptop", it isn't built for the room.
6. What will participants hear or see? Check for built-in notices, then decide how you'll ask for consent yourself.

If a tool passes all six for the meetings you actually have, it's a real Fireflies alternative for you. If it fails number five and most of your meetings are in person, keep looking. Our guide to AI meeting notes without a bot goes deeper on the bot-free setup.

Which Fireflies alternative fits your week

The right pick depends less on features than on where you sit when the conversation happens. Three examples, all fictional:

Marco, a packaging equipment rep. Six visits a day at plants and distributors, one video call a week. On Monday a plant manager asks "Who's the extra guest?" about the Fireflies tile; on Tuesday, standing at the filler line, there's no call for a bot to join and no notes at all. Questions three and five settle it: he wants the audio and rarely has a laptop open. He records on his phone, and before he reaches the car he has a summary and a draft follow-up email after the sales call.

Hannah, a customer success manager. Eight video calls a day from her desk, all in English. She doesn't need to leave Fireflies: she installs the desktop app and keeps the spoken notice on. If its trade-offs start to bite, Granola, Otter's desktop app and Fathom are the laptop-first options to trial.

Sofia, a consultant in Munich. Workshops in German, calls with a Madrid team in Spanish, and data-residency questions from every client. Jamie's EU hosting answers her clients' IT teams. For the workshops, where a phone on the table beats a laptop, she trials ParrotNotes Pro, speaks German in the room, and gets an English transcript for head office.

Want to see the transcript quality first? Drop a recording into our free audio to text tool.

The short version

• Mostly video calls at a desk: try Fireflies' desktop app first, then Granola, Otter, Fathom or Jamie.
• Want free and unlimited for Zoom: Fathom or tl;dv, both with a bot.
• Mostly meetings in a room: use a phone app built for the table. Download ParrotNotes free and record the next one: 100 minutes a month, with a summary on every recording.
• Either way: run the six-question checklist during the trial, and ask before you record.