Fireflies helped a lot of teams stop taking notes by hand, but it is not the right fit for everyone. Maybe the recording bot keeps showing up on client calls, maybe the AI credits make billing hard to predict, or maybe you have realised that a pile of transcripts is not the same as actually remembering your project. Whatever the reason, this guide rounds up the Fireflies alternatives worth considering in 2026.

We have grouped them by what they are genuinely good at, so you can match a tool to your team instead of to a feature list. Prices and plans change often, so treat the pricing notes as a starting point and confirm on each vendor's site.

Why teams look for a Fireflies alternative

Before the list, it helps to name the usual triggers, because the best alternative depends on which one is yours:

• Bot fatigue. Clients and executives ask you to remove the recorder before the call even starts, and a visible bot is awkward on every external meeting.

• Unpredictable cost. Credit-based pricing for advanced features makes it hard to know what a seat actually costs each month.

• Transcripts without memory. You can find any single meeting, but not the answer to "what did we decide, and why?" across a whole project.

Keep your trigger in mind as you read. If it is the third one, that is a different category of tool entirely, which is where this list starts.

The 7 best Fireflies alternatives in 2026

1. Lunar — best for project memory

Lunar captures your meetings without sending a bot into the call, then goes a step further than any notetaker: it turns every meeting, email, and document into a single project memory you can query in plain language. Instead of hunting through transcripts, you ask "what did we agree on pricing last week?" and get a sourced answer. If your real problem is losing context between calls, this is the category Fireflies does not compete in. See the difference in AI meeting notes vs project memory.

Best for: product, design, and consulting teams running long, multi-meeting projects. Free during early access.

2. Otter — best for live transcription

Otter remains one of the strongest tools for real-time transcription you can read as the meeting happens, with a solid mobile app for in-person conversations and an assistant that answers questions about past meetings.

Best for: people who want to read along live and record in-person meetings on the go.

3. Fathom — best free notetaker

Fathom is popular for its generous free tier and fast, clean summaries with timestamped highlights. It is a straightforward upgrade if you mainly want tidy recaps without a steep price.

Best for: individuals and small teams who want quality summaries for free.

4. Fellow — best for meeting agendas

Fellow pairs recording with agendas and action-item workflows, and offers bot-free capture on its desktop app. It suits teams that want the meeting structure and the notes in one place.

Best for: managers who run structured meetings with agendas and follow-ups.

5. tl;dv — best for sharing clips

tl;dv stands out for multilingual meetings and short, shareable video clips you can drop into Slack or Notion, which is handy for spreading context to people who missed the call.

Best for: distributed teams that share highlights as video.

6. Read AI — best all-round assistant

Read AI treats meetings as one surface among many, pulling in signals across Meet, Zoom, Teams, and email to summarise and surface insights. It is a broad option for teams that want analytics alongside notes.

Best for: teams that want meeting analytics and engagement metrics.

7. Granola — best for personal notes

Granola captures your device audio without a bot and blends it with your own typed notes, producing a polished write-up. It is a favourite for individual power users. We compare it in depth in our Granola alternatives guide.

Best for: individuals who like to take notes and have AI clean them up.

How to choose the right Fireflies alternative

Match the tool to your trigger rather than the longest feature list:

• If the bot is the problem, prioritise bot-free recording (Lunar, Fellow, Granola).

• If cost predictability is the problem, favour flat per-seat pricing over credit systems.

• If losing context is the problem, you need project memory, not just better summaries — this is where an AI notetaker is not enough.

For a wider field of options with pricing and privacy notes, see our full roundup of the best AI meeting notes tools in 2026.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free Fireflies alternative?

Fathom is the strongest free notetaker for clean summaries, while Lunar is free during early access and adds project memory on top of capture.

Which Fireflies alternative records without a bot?

Lunar, Fellow, and Granola all capture meetings without adding a visible bot to the participant list, which is ideal for client and external calls.

What can I use instead of Fireflies for whole-project context?

Standard notetakers only capture single meetings. A project memory tool like Lunar connects every call, email, and document into one searchable source you can query in plain language.