Granola vs Fireflies: Which AI Meeting Notes Tool Wins in 2026?

A quick disclosure: we build CraftNote, which competes with both of these tools. The Granola and Fireflies figures below come from each vendor's own published pricing and product pages as of August 2026, not from memory or estimation.

Quick summary table

How Granola actually works

Granola runs on your Mac or Windows machine (and now iOS) and listens to your device's audio while you jot down whatever rough notes you'd normally type in a meeting anyway. After the call, it uses the transcript to rewrite and structure your notes rather than generating a summary from a blank page. There's no bot, nothing joins the call as a visible participant, and the whole experience is intentionally minimal. Granola isn't trying to be a dashboard, it's trying to be a better notepad.

The free Basic plan works but keeps a limited meeting history, so it's really a trial of the workflow rather than something you can rely on long-term. Business is $14 per user per month and adds team features and more history; Enterprise runs $35 per user per month. Granola's desktop app covers roughly ten languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese, Russian and Hindi), and the interface itself is English-only, so multilingual teams will hit a ceiling here that Fireflies doesn't have.

How Fireflies actually works

Fireflies takes the opposite approach: a bot joins your Zoom, Meet or Teams call, records it, and generates a full transcript, AI summary and action-item list without you needing to type anything during the meeting. That output then pushes automatically into the tools your team already runs on, including CRMs like Salesforce and HubSpot and Slack, which is the entire point of the product for revenue and customer-facing teams.

The free plan is unlimited on transcription itself, but storage is capped at 400 minutes per team (not per person) with 20 AI credits, and 100+ languages are supported even at that free tier. Pro is $18/user monthly or $10/user billed annually and adds 8,000 minutes of storage per seat plus video recording. Business is $29/user monthly ($19/user annual) and removes the storage cap, adds 30 AI credits a month and team analytics.

The real trade-off: who leads the meeting

The most important difference isn't the bot. It's who's doing the work of capturing the meeting. Granola assumes you're an active participant who types a little as you go; its AI is an editor, not an author. If you stop typing, or you're leading the call and can't spare attention to jot notes, Granola has much less to work with. Fireflies assumes nobody in the room is typing anything; its bot does the entire job of listening and structuring the output, which is why it fits teams where multiple people are on a call and nobody wants to be the designated note-taker.

That also explains the platform gap. Granola only needs to hear your device's microphone and system audio, so it never had to solve mobile or in-person capture, hence no Android app, no web app, and no real answer for a hallway conversation or a phone call. Fireflies is built entirely around joining scheduled video calls, so it has the opposite blind spot: it has no bot-free mode and nothing to offer once you step away from a Zoom link.

Setup and what your colleagues see

Setting up Granola means installing a Mac or Windows app and granting it microphone and system-audio permissions; from a colleague's perspective, nothing changes about the meeting itself, because Granola isn't visible to anyone but you. That's a real advantage in client-facing calls or interviews where a named recording bot can make people more guarded, or where a client's own policy simply won't allow a third-party bot in the room.

Fireflies requires no install for the people you're meeting with, but everyone on the call sees its bot join as a named participant, usually with a note that the meeting is being recorded. Some teams like that transparency: it's an explicit, visible consent signal. Others find it changes how candidly people talk, especially in sensitive one-on-ones, performance conversations, or calls with prospects who are wary of being recorded by a third party they didn't choose.

Where Granola wins

• No bot in the call. Nothing joins as a visible participant, which clients and colleagues often prefer.
• Minimalist and human-led: you stay in control of the note; AI just sharpens it.
• A quieter, more private feel than a third-party bot sitting in the meeting.
• Runs on iOS now, not just Mac, closing some of its old mobile gap.

Where Fireflies wins

• Deep CRM and Slack automation that pushes notes and action items into your stack without manual work.
• Unlimited transcription on the free plan, with no per-meeting time cap.
• 100+ language support, versus Granola's roughly ten desktop languages and English-only interface.
• Team analytics and admin controls for running many meetings a week across a team.
• Not tied to a single operating system the way Granola is tied to Mac and Windows desktops.

Which should you choose?

• You're a Mac or Windows user who already types rough notes and wants a quiet, private editor for them: Granola.
• You're a team, especially in sales or customer success, that wants transcripts and action items automatically in your CRM: Fireflies.
• You want bot-free notes that also work on Android or the web, or you need to capture in-person meetings and phone calls, not just Mac video calls: CraftNote pairs a no-bot approach with cross-platform apps (iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows, web), 100+ languages, and a genuinely usable free plan. See CraftNote vs Granola and CraftNote vs Fireflies.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related reading

• Best Granola alternatives
• Best Fireflies alternatives
• Otter vs Fireflies
• Best AI note takers in 2026