On-device: audio never leaves your machine. No bot, no cloud.
Granola is a polished Mac app that drafts meeting notes from system audio. No bot joins the call, which is the first thing people notice. The drafting layer is capable: custom templates, chat-with-meetings, action items, cross-meeting search, and speaker diarization. Export goes to Notion, Slack, and HubSpot. For a Mac-only person or team that lives in those three tools and is fine with audio in the cloud, it's a strong pick.
Teams look for Granola alternatives for three concrete reasons, and none of them makes it a bad product. The audio path is cloud-only with no local option. The app is macOS-only. The paid plans run £14–35 a month with no one-off option. Each wall bites a specific kind of buyer.
The distinction that trips people up is bot-free versus on-device. Granola is bot-free: no calendar-invite bot joins your call. But it is not on-device. Audio still leaves the machine for cloud processing, and that is the default. Several Mac-only tools call themselves bot-free and still upload audio. For a marketing-call recording or an internal standup, a data-training opt-out is a useful control. For a clinician, a lawyer, or a regulated team whose compliance review asks where the audio goes, the audio has already left.
The price compounds. Paid plans run £14–35 a month on annual billing, with a free tier that caps meeting history tightly. Business is £14 a month for unlimited notes. Enterprise is £35 a month for team features. A 10-person team on Business pays £1,680 a year. There is no one-off Pro option, and the subscription locks your note history to the service. Stop paying and you lose the workflow.
Platform support is the other hard line. Granola is macOS-only. Windows and Linux users can't use it at all, and audio file import isn't specified in the public materials, so pre-recorded content isn't a clear workaround. A mixed-platform team can't standardise on it. A colleague joining on Linux has no fallback. For a solo Mac user this doesn't matter. For anyone hiring, contracting, or working across devices, it's the constraint that forces a switch.
Where Granola does well is the drafting experience. The macOS app is fast, the templates produce clean notes, and the chat-with-meetings layer lets you ask follow-up questions of a transcript without leaving the app. Cross-meeting search is useful for someone who runs a lot of calls and wants to find a decision from three weeks ago. The company is VC-funded ($43M Series B), holds SOC2, and offers a data-training opt-out. The Notion, Slack, and HubSpot export covers the three tools a small product or sales team uses most.
The buyers who switch off Granola fall into three camps. First, the compliance camp: a healthcare practice, a law firm, a regulated fintech whose own compliance team asks where meeting audio goes, and can't answer "Granola's servers." Second, the mixed-platform camp: a team that hired a Windows user or contracted someone on Linux and found the Mac-only tool can't be the standard. Third, the subscription-fatigue camp: a solo user or small team that looked at £168 a seat a year and noticed a one-off local option exists. The alternatives below speak to each camp differently, which is why the ranking isn't a single axis.
Ranked by fit for local, bot-free meeting notes. Clearminutes is the local-first anchor at the end.
Otter.ai puts a bot in every call and sends audio to its servers. Clearminutes runs on your machine.
Best for: sales teams that want CRM-synced cloud notes and a polished shared workspace. A bot joins every call and audio goes to Otter's servers. The free tier caps at 300 minutes a month, with no on-device or offline option.
Price: $0/forever
Otter.ai is best for sales teams who want CRM-synced cloud notes and a polished shared workspace. A bot joins every call and audio goes to Otter's servers, with a free tier capped at 300 minutes a month and no on-device or offline option. Strong on Zoom, Teams, Salesforce, and HubSpot integration, weak on privacy and native cross-platform apps. Pick it when team collaboration matters more than keeping audio on the device.
Meeting transcription without the awkward "Fireflies has joined" announcement or monthly subscription.
Best for: teams that want a rich searchable transcript archive and deep CRM integrations with Salesforce and HubSpot. A cloud bot joins every call and audio is stored on Fireflies.ai's servers. The free tier is limited to 800 minutes of storage per seat.
Price: $0/forever
Fireflies.ai is best for teams who want a rich searchable transcript archive and deep CRM integrations like Salesforce and HubSpot. A cloud bot joins every call and audio is stored on Fireflies.ai's servers, with the free tier limited to 800 minutes of storage per seat. Strong on search and CRM workflows, weak on privacy and offline use. Pick it when searchable team transcripts matter more than local processing.
Fathom is a free Zoom-only cloud notetaker. Clearminutes works with any audio source, runs locally on Mac and Windows, and doesn't need Zoom.
Best for: teams on Zoom who want a free, simple cloud notetaker with unlimited recordings and 28-language support. A bot joins every call, coverage is Zoom-only, and audio is uploaded to Fathom's servers. There's no on-device transcription path and no offline option.
Price: $0/forever
Fathom is best for teams on Zoom who want a free, simple cloud notetaker with unlimited recordings and broad 28-language support. A bot joins every call, coverage is Zoom-only, and audio is uploaded to Fathom's servers with no on-device transcription path. Strong on free-tier generosity and language coverage, weak on platform breadth and privacy. Pick it when you live on Zoom and want free cloud notes.
Jamie is bot-free but summarises in the cloud on Mac and Windows. Clearminutes keeps the summary on-device too, with a real free tier and Linux support.
Best for: individuals who want a free, bot-free local summary on Mac and Windows with export to Notion, Slack, and HubSpot. The free tier is limited and the paid plan is £25/month for fuller features. The feature set is lighter than the cloud incumbents.
Price: £0/forever
Jamie is best for individuals who want a free, bot-free local summary on Mac and Windows with Notion, Slack, and HubSpot export. Processing is partial — offline is available but summaries are not fully on-device. The free tier is limited and the paid plan is £25 a month. Strong on bot-free capture and export, weak on Linux, a real free tier, and a local LLM. Pick it for solo Mac or Windows use.
Krisp pioneered noise cancellation. Clearminutes is a complete AI meeting assistant: transcription, summaries, action items, and task sync.
Best for: teams that need noise cancellation first and a meeting assistant second. Transcription is a cloud add-on, not the core product. There's a 14-day trial then a limited free tier, 16-language support, and an $8–15/month paid plan for full features.
Price: $0/forever
Krisp is best for teams who need noise cancellation first and a meeting assistant second. Transcription is a cloud add-on rather than the core product; noise cancellation runs locally but transcription does not. A 14-day trial gives way to a limited free tier, with a paid plan at $8–15 a month for full features across 16 languages. Strong on noise removal, weak on on-device transcription and offline notes. Pick it when call audio is noisy.
tl;dv records Google Meet, Zoom, and Teams in the cloud with a bot in the call. Clearminutes keeps the recording on your machine and works offline.
Best for: teams on Google Meet, Zoom, and Teams who want a free-tier cloud recorder with 30+ language transcripts and Chrome-based capture. A bot joins every call and audio is uploaded to tl-dv's servers. The paid plan is $20–25/month, with no on-device transcription option.
Price: $0/forever
tl;dv is best for teams on Google Meet, Zoom, and Teams who want a free-tier cloud recorder with 30+ language transcripts and Chrome-based capture. A bot joins every call and audio is uploaded to tl;dv's servers, with a $20–25 a month paid plan and no on-device transcription option. Strong on multi-platform recording and language coverage, weak on privacy and offline use. Pick it for free cloud recording across meeting platforms.
Avoma is a cloud sales-intelligence platform for revenue teams. Clearminutes is a local-first desktop app with no bots, no uploads, and on-device AI.
Best for: revenue teams that want conversation intelligence, CRM auto-entry, and AI coaching scorecards on top of meeting notes. A bot or integration joins every call and audio is uploaded to Avoma's cloud on AWS. There's no free tier, just a 14-day trial, and no on-device transcription.
Price: $19/seat/mo/annual
Avoma is best for revenue and customer-success teams who want conversation intelligence, CRM auto-entry, and AI coaching scorecards on top of meeting notes. A bot or integration joins every call and audio is uploaded to Avoma's cloud on AWS, with no free tier beyond a 14-day trial and no on-device transcription. Strong on Salesforce, HubSpot, and coaching analytics, weak on privacy and any offline or no-bot workflow. Pick it when revenue analytics matter more than keeping audio on the device.
Two local-first Tauri apps built on similar technology. Meetily is open source with a new Pro tier. Clearminutes adds speaker diarization, integrations, guided onboarding, and active commercial development.
Best for: developers who want an open-source local notes tool that runs Whisper on-device with unlimited free use. There are no integrations and no diarization polish. The split is Free Community / $10 Pro, and on Linux it's buildable from source rather than a packaged app.
Price: £0/forever
Meetily is best for developers who want a fully auditable, MIT-licensed local notes tool that runs Whisper on-device with unlimited free use. There are no integrations, diarization is only coming soon on Pro, and there's no commercial support, just the community. On Linux it's buildable from source rather than a packaged app. Strong on openness and local processing, weak on polish, integrations, and support. Pick it when an auditable open-source codebase matters more than a finished product.
Notion AI Meeting Notes lives in your Notion workspace and sends audio to cloud sub-processors. Clearminutes keeps audio on your machine with no account and no uploads.
Best for: teams already living in Notion who want meeting notes inline in their workspace. Audio goes to OpenAI, Anthropic, and other third-party LLMs, with no on-device transcription. Speaker identification is English-only and 1:1-best, and a Notion account is required.
Price: £0/forever
Notion AI Meeting Notes is best for teams already living in Notion who want meeting notes inline in their workspace. Audio goes to OpenAI, Anthropic, and other third-party LLMs, with no on-device transcription, and a Notion account is required. Speaker identification is English-only and works best 1:1. Strong on in-workspace notes and custom templates, weak on privacy, offline, and any no-account workflow. Pick it when workspace notes matter more than keeping audio off third-party servers.
Speechmark is a Mac menu-bar app that processes on-device after the call. Clearminutes adds Windows and Linux, a live transcript during the call, and a network monitor.
Best for: UK teams on macOS who want a local-first, no-bot meeting notes tool with one-time pricing (free during beta) and a Claude Desktop connector. It's Mac-only, with no live transcript and no privacy network monitor. Summaries are processed after you stop recording.
Price: Free/during beta
Speechmark is best for UK teams on macOS who want a local-first, no-bot meeting notes tool with one-time pricing, free during beta then a single purchase, and a Claude Desktop connector. It's Mac-only on Apple silicon, with no live transcript because it processes after you stop, and no privacy network monitor. Strong on local audio and no-account simplicity, weak on cross-platform and live capture. Pick it when a one-time Mac tool matters more than Windows, Linux, or a live transcript.
Trilla is a free local-first Mac app on Apple Silicon. Clearminutes adds Windows, task sync, and a Pro tier.
Best for: Mac users on Apple Silicon who want a free, local, no-bot transcriber running Whisper and Ollama on-device, with local voice prints and no account. It's macOS-only, with no Windows or Linux build. The integration surface is smaller and the feature set is lighter than the cross-platform options.
Price: £0/forever
Trilla is best for Mac users on Apple Silicon who want a free, local, no-bot transcriber that runs Whisper and Ollama on-device with local voice prints and no account. Every feature is free with no subscription and no gating. It's macOS-only, with no Windows or Linux build, and it relies on Ollama for local summaries rather than shipping a built-in LLM. Strong on free local capture, weak on cross-platform and integrations. Pick it when free and local on Mac matters more than Windows or Pro integrations.
On-device, no bot, no cloud audio.
Best for: privacy-first teams who want meeting notes without uploading audio to the cloud.
Price: £0/forever
Clearminutes is best for teams who need meeting audio to stay on the device. Transcription runs on local Whisper and summaries on a built-in local LLM, with no cloud upload at any step. It works offline, ships for Windows alongside macOS, and shows zero outbound audio connections in its in-app network monitor. A real free tier and bring-your-own API keys make it the local-first pick when every other tool on this list sends audio to the cloud.
| Feature | Avoma | Jamie | Speechmark | Fireflies.ai | Krisp | tl;dv | Trilla | Otter.ai | Fathom | Meetily | Notion AI Meeting Notes | Clearminutes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meeting bots | Yes (bot or integration joins call) | No | No | Yes (bot joins call) | No (bot-free option) | Yes (bot joins call) | No | Bot joins call | Yes (bot joins call) | No | No | No |
| Local processing | No (cloud-only) | Partial (offline available) | — | No (cloud-only) | Partial (noise cancellation local, transcription cloud) | No (cloud-only) | Yes (Whisper + Ollama) | No (cloud-only) | No (cloud-only) | Yes (Whisper) | No | Yes (on-device models) |
| Speaker identification | Yes | Yes | Yes (confirm-name flow) | — | Yes | Yes | Yes (local voice prints) | Yes | Yes | — | Yes (English only, 1:1 best) | Yes (Pro) |
| Works offline | No | — | — | No | Partial (noise cancellation offline) | No | — | No | No | — | No | Yes (local models) |
| Free tier | No (14-day trial only; viewers free on paid plans) | Yes (limited) | — | Yes (limited AI summaries, 800 min storage) | Yes (14-day trial, then limited) | Yes (limited recordings) | Yes (unlimited) | Yes (300 min/month) | Yes (unlimited recordings) | Yes (unlimited, open source) | Limited AI trial (Free/Plus) | Yes |
| Language support | 40+ languages (translation on Organization tier+) | — | — | 69 languages | 16 languages | 30+ languages | — | English, French, Spanish | 28 languages | — | 16 languages | 6+ languages |
These aren't bugs. They're the shape of a polished, cloud-only, Mac-only product, and each one bites a specific kind of buyer.
They bite only when your requirement is local processing, Windows, or a real free tier. If you only use Mac and live in Notion, Slack, and HubSpot, none of these bite, and Granola's drafting layer is worth the subscription. The question is whether your constraint is the drafting experience or where the audio goes.
Granola optimises the Mac drafting experience and accepts cloud audio, Mac-only, and a monthly subscription. Clearminutes optimises where the audio goes and accepts a lighter drafting layer. Pick the one that matches your hard constraint.
Your hard requirement is that meeting audio never leaves the device. Transcription and summarisation run locally on Whisper and Gemma with no cloud upload at any step. Clearminutes runs the full pipeline on-device, works offline, supports Windows alongside macOS, and shows zero outbound audio connections in its in-app network monitor. A built-in local LLM, bring-your-own API keys, and no monthly subscription. The free tier is real, and Pro is a one-off price, not a per-seat subscription that compounds across a team. For healthcare, legal, or regulated work where the compliance story depends on audio staying on the device, that's the structural difference. It's also the cheaper pick over a year: a one-off Pro price against £168 a seat a year. The trade is a less polished drafting layer, no chat-with-meetings, and a smaller integration surface.
You only use Mac and want its polished cloud-native drafting workflow: custom templates, chat-with-meetings, action items, cross-meeting search, and speaker diarization. You want Notion, Slack, and HubSpot export and you're fine with audio in the cloud, no offline mode, and a £14–35 monthly subscription with a limited free tier. Granola is the right call for Mac-only users who live in those three tools and don't have a compliance constraint on where audio is processed. If your meetings are internal standups, sales calls where recording is disclosed, or product reviews, the cloud processing default is fine and the drafting experience is the strongest Mac option on this list.
Do the maths for your team before you commit. A 10-person team on Granola's Business plan pays £1,680 a year; a one-off local Pro price doesn't compound. Granola keeps the polished Mac drafting layer, the chat-with-meetings feature, and the Notion/Slack/HubSpot export. It gives up the audio path, offline use, Windows, and any say in where the notes run. Clearminutes keeps the audio on the machine, offline transcription, bring-your-own keys, and a network monitor that shows zero outbound audio, so the privacy claim is something you can check in the app, not a line on a marketing page. It gives up the drafting polish and the CRM. Neither is the better tool across the board; each fits a buyer whose hard constraint the other one can't meet.
No. Granola processes audio on its own servers with no local option, so it needs an internet connection for the drafting pipeline. There's no offline mode.
No. Granola is macOS-only. There's no Windows or Linux build, and audio file import isn't specified, so pre-recorded content isn't a clear workaround for non-Mac users.
The paid plans run £14–35 a month on annual billing, with a free tier that limits meeting history tightly. There's no one-off Pro option — it's a per-seat monthly subscription.
No bot joins the call. Granola is bot-free in that sense, but it still uploads meeting audio to its servers for processing. Bot-free and on-device aren't the same thing.
No. Summaries run on Granola's cloud AI only. There's no bring-your-own-API-key option and no on-device summarisation path.
On Granola's servers, including speaker diarization. A data-training opt-out is available, but the default is cloud processing, so audio leaves the device.
Yes. Granola labels speakers in the transcript, but the diarization runs in the cloud alongside the rest of the processing. There's no on-device diarization path.
Audio file import isn't specified in Granola's public materials, so pre-recorded content isn't a clear workaround for non-Mac users or offline workflows. It's designed for live Mac system-audio capture.
Not where the constraint is that audio must not leave the device. Granola's cloud processing default means meeting audio is uploaded, and a data-training opt-out doesn't change that. Clinicians and lawyers usually need a local-first option.
Last updated: 2026-04-01. Compared from each tool's public pricing and feature data (see sources), as of the last-updated date.
Sources: Granola official site (2026-06-21), Granola pricing page (2026-06-21), Granola privacy page (2026-06-21).
Clearminutes is our own product; we've kept the comparison fair.
Local transcription, live transcript view, AI summaries, and a verifiable privacy network monitor. No cloud uploads, no bots, runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux.