7 Best Fireflies Alternatives in 2026 (Beyond the AI Credits)
Fireflies.ai is a genuinely good meeting notetaker, and it’s a Carly integration partner. So why do so many people search for a Fireflies alternative in 2026? The switch story is almost never quality. It’s the gap between the marketing and the bill. Fireflies advertises “unlimited summaries,” but its most useful AI features — AskFred, advanced summaries, action-item extraction — run on a monthly AI credit allowance (roughly 20 on Pro, 30 on Business). Hit the cap and those features pause until next month or you buy more at about $0.10 each, which is why heavy users report Trustpilot-worthy surprise charges. Billing is strictly per seat with no pooling, so costs climb fast as a team grows. Add the ever-present concern about a bot visibly joining every call, and the reasons to shop around are all about fit and pricing, not whether Fireflies works. Here are seven alternatives that solve specific versions of that problem.
1. Fathom
The most common landing spot for people leaving Fireflies, largely because its free tier is unusually generous.
What makes it different from Fireflies: Fathom gives you unlimited recordings, transcripts, and storage on the free plan with no credit meter on the transcription itself — the only free-tier limit is 5 AI summaries per month. There’s no “unlimited that isn’t actually unlimited” asterisk on recording. Paid Team Edition (about $19/user/month annually) removes the summary cap and adds shared libraries, keyword alerts, and CRM sync. See the full Fathom vs Fireflies breakdown for the head-to-head.
Best for: Solo users and small teams who want a free tool that stays free without credit anxiety.
Pricing: Free (unlimited recordings, 5 AI summaries/mo); Team Edition ~$19/user/month annually
2. Granola
A bot-free notetaker that captures your device audio directly instead of sending a visible bot into the call.
What makes it different from Fireflies: Fireflies joins meetings as a named participant that everyone sees. Granola records the audio locally on your machine, so there’s no bot in the attendee list and no awkward “who invited the notetaker” moment. It blends your own typed notes with an AI-enhanced transcript. In 2026 Granola simplified pricing to a $14/user/month Business plan with unlimited history plus Notion, HubSpot, and Slack integrations; the free Basic tier is capped at 25 meetings for the life of the account and 14 days of history. Compare it directly in Granola vs Fathom.
Best for: External-facing calls and privacy-conscious teams that don’t want a bot announcing itself.
Pricing: Free (25 lifetime meetings, 14-day history); Business $14/user/month
3. Otter.ai
The accuracy and real-time specialist, with live captions that appear as you talk.
What makes it different from Fireflies: Otter leans hardest into real-time transcription and consistently scores at the top of accuracy benchmarks, which matters if you need live captions or you transcribe accented or technical speech. The trade-off is minutes-based metering: the free Basic plan is 300 minutes per month capped at 30 minutes per conversation, and Pro (~$8.33/user/month annually) is 1,200 minutes — a different flavor of limit than Fireflies’ credits. Otter has also been named in meeting-notetaker privacy litigation, so review its consent and data settings for your context.
Best for: People who prioritize transcript accuracy and live captions over unlimited recording volume.
Pricing: Free (300 min/mo); Pro ~$8.33/user/month annually; Business ~$20/user/month
4. tl;dv
A multilingual notetaker with a strong free tier and a sales/CRM bent.
What makes it different from Fireflies: tl;dv supports transcription in 30+ languages and gives you unlimited recording on the free plan, capping only AI summaries (10/month) rather than the recordings themselves. It’s built to push meeting data into HubSpot, Salesforce, Notion, and Slack, though those integrations sit behind the paid tiers. Recordings on the free plan auto-delete after three months, so it favors people who act on notes quickly. See Fireflies vs tl;dv for the direct comparison.
Best for: Multilingual and international sales teams that want CRM-bound notes.
Pricing: Free (unlimited recording, 10 AI summaries/mo); Pro ~$18/user/month annually
5. Fellow
Notes plus the meeting itself — agendas, talking points, and action items in one workflow.
What makes it different from Fireflies: Fireflies captures what was said; Fellow tries to improve the meeting around the transcript. It pairs collaborative agendas and shared action items with AI notes, which suits recurring team meetings and 1:1s more than one-off sales calls. The free plan covers up to 10 users with core notes, transcription, and summaries — unusually generous — and paid tiers start around $7/user/month. If your real problem is meetings being unstructured, not un-transcribed, Fellow addresses the cause.
Best for: Managers and teams who want structured recurring meetings, not just recordings of them.
Pricing: Free (up to 10 users); Team ~$7/user/month; Business ~$9/user/month
6. Krisp
Bot-free notes built on top of best-in-class noise cancellation.
What makes it different from Fireflies: Krisp started as a noise-cancellation engine and layered an AI meeting assistant on top, so it captures clean audio at the device level with no bot joining the call. If you take calls from noisy environments — coworking spaces, home with a dog, a busy office — the audio going into the transcript is dramatically cleaner, which improves the notes downstream. It also does real-time accent conversion for global teams.
Best for: People in noisy environments who want clean, bot-free transcripts.
Pricing: Free trial; Core ~$8/month annually; Advanced ~$15/month annually
7. Gong
The enterprise revenue-intelligence platform, for teams whose Fireflies use is really about the sales pipeline.
What makes it different from Fireflies: Gong isn’t a notetaker you swap in one-for-one — it’s a full revenue-intelligence system that records calls, then analyzes deal risk, coaches reps, and syncs everything to your CRM. It’s the right move only if you’re a sizable revenue org, because pricing runs roughly $1,400–$1,600 per user per year plus a platform fee and mandatory onboarding, an order of magnitude above Fireflies. If your Fireflies notes exist mainly to feed forecasting and coaching, Gong does that job at a different tier entirely.
Best for: Sales organizations that need coaching and forecasting, not just meeting notes.
Pricing: Custom, typically ~$1,400–$1,600/user/year plus platform fee
Fireflies Alternatives Compared
Whichever notetaker you land on, Carly can hook right in — native integrations for Fireflies and Fathom, plus bring-your-own API key for anything else. Ask it what you committed to on a call and it reads the transcript, checks the email thread, and drafts the follow-up.
| Tool | Recording model | Free tier | AI note limit | Starting paid price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fathom | Bot join | Unlimited recordings | 5 summaries/mo free | ~$19/user/mo |
| Granola | Bot-free (device audio) | 25 lifetime meetings | Free tier only | $14/user/mo |
| Otter.ai | Bot join + live | 300 min/mo | Minutes-based | ~$8.33/user/mo |
| tl;dv | Bot join | Unlimited recordings | 10 summaries/mo free | ~$18/user/mo |
| Fellow | Bot join + agendas | Up to 10 users | Credit-based | ~$7/user/mo |
| Krisp | Bot-free (device audio) | Trial only | Trial then paid | ~$8/mo |
| Gong | Bot join | None | Enterprise | ~$1,400+/user/yr |
| Fireflies | Bot join | Free plan | AI credits (20–30/mo) | $10/user/mo |
FAQ
Why do people leave Fireflies in 2026? Mostly pricing surprises, not quality. Fireflies markets “unlimited summaries,” but AskFred and advanced AI features draw on a monthly credit allowance (about 20 on Pro, 30 on Business). Once you hit it, those features pause or cost about $0.10 each, and billing is per seat with no pooling — so heavy or growing teams pay more than the sticker price suggests.
What’s the best free Fireflies alternative? Fathom, for most people. Its free plan includes unlimited recordings, transcripts, and storage with no credit meter on transcription; the only free limit is 5 AI summaries per month. tl;dv is a close second with unlimited free recording and 10 summaries a month.
Which Fireflies alternative doesn’t use a meeting bot? Granola and Krisp both capture audio directly on your device instead of sending a visible bot into the call, so nothing shows up in the attendee list. That’s often preferable for external and client-facing meetings.
Do any of these skip the AI credit model entirely? Yes. Fathom’s free tier meters only AI summaries (5/month) rather than transcription, and Granola’s Business plan has no credit add-ons at all. If unpredictable credit charges are your reason for leaving Fireflies, those two remove that mechanic. For the wider field, see AI notetakers compared and the roundup of the best AI personal assistants that act on the notes afterward.
More: Otter vs Fireflies vs Fathom · Fathom alternatives · Best AI notetakers
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