On-device: audio never leaves your machine. No bot, no cloud.
Krisp made its name on noise cancellation, not meeting notes. The core product removes background noise from calls in real time, runs locally on your machine, and works offline. It adds accent conversion and a 750-term custom vocabulary. On top of that core it has grown a meeting-assistant layer: transcription, summaries, action items, chat-with-meetings, speaker diarization, and CRM sync to Salesforce, HubSpot, and Slack. It runs on macOS and Windows, works with any meeting platform, and supports audio file import. For a noisy environment like an open-plan office, a support team, or field sales calling from cars, it is the strongest noise option in this comparison, and the assistant layer makes it a usable all-in-one.
The split that matters is the cloud split. Krisp's noise cancellation runs locally, but its transcription may use the cloud. The noise core stays on the device; the notes core does not. Krisp holds SOC2 and GDPR compliance certifications and offers HIPAA on Enterprise, and an account is required to use it. But those certifications cover how Krisp handles data on its servers, not whether your meeting audio stays on your device. For a compliance review that asks where the audio goes, the answer is "it depends which feature you used," which is the hardest kind of answer to defend. A healthcare practice, a law firm, or a regulated fintech that bought Krisp for the noise can run into this wall the moment someone uses the notes.
The pricing is the second wall. A 14-day trial gives way to a limited free tier with basic noise cancellation. Full features need the $8 Pro or $15 Business plan, billed annually per seat. For a noise tool that is reasonable. For a meeting assistant, the trial cliff is sharp: two weeks of full use, then the notes layer you actually wanted gates behind a subscription. There is no one-off price and no bring-your-own API key option; summaries run on Krisp's cloud AI only, with no on-device summarisation path. Language support sits at 16 languages, narrower than Fathom's 28 or tl;dv's 30-plus, which matters for multilingual teams.
People who switch off Krisp fall into a few camps. Some bought it for noise, started using the notes, and then got asked by compliance where the transcription audio goes. Some wanted a meeting assistant and tried Krisp because it was already installed, then found the notes layer thinner than a transcription-first tool. Some hit the 14-day wall and looked for a no-cap local option. The list below speaks to each camp differently, which is why it is not ranked on 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.
Granola is a polished Mac-only drafting app that processes audio in the cloud. Clearminutes runs on-device, on Mac and Windows, with a one-off Pro price.
Best for: Mac users who want a polished meeting summary app that drafts notes and exports to Notion, Slack, and HubSpot. It's Mac-only with cloud-only audio processing, a limited free tier, and a £14–35/month subscription. The integration surface is smaller than the cloud incumbents.
Price: £0/forever
Granola is best for Mac-only users who want a polished cloud-native drafting workflow with custom templates, chat-with-meetings, action items, cross-meeting search, and speaker diarization, plus Notion, Slack, and HubSpot export. Audio is processed on Granola's servers with no local option, and the paid plans run £14–35 a month. Strong on the Mac drafting experience, weak on Windows, Linux, offline, and a real free tier. Pick it for Mac-only work in those three tools.
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 | Granola | Avoma | Jamie | Speechmark | Fireflies.ai | tl;dv | Trilla | Otter.ai | Fathom | Meetily | Notion AI Meeting Notes | Clearminutes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meeting bots | No | Yes (bot or integration joins call) | No | No | Yes (bot joins call) | Yes (bot joins call) | No | Bot joins call | Yes (bot joins call) | No | No | No |
| Local processing | No (cloud-only) | No (cloud-only) | Partial (offline available) | — | No (cloud-only) | No (cloud-only) | Yes (Whisper + Ollama) | No (cloud-only) | No (cloud-only) | Yes (Whisper) | No | Yes (on-device models) |
| Speaker identification | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (confirm-name flow) | — | Yes | Yes (local voice prints) | Yes | Yes | — | Yes (English only, 1:1 best) | Yes (Pro) |
| Works offline | — | No | — | — | No | No | — | No | No | — | No | Yes (local models) |
| Free tier | Yes (limited history) | No (14-day trial only; viewers free on paid plans) | Yes (limited) | — | Yes (limited AI summaries, 800 min storage) | 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 | 30+ languages | — | English, French, Spanish | 28 languages | — | 16 languages | 6+ languages |
These aren't bugs. They're the shape of a noise-cancellation tool that added notes, and each one bites a specific kind of buyer.
If your real problem is noise and the notes are a bonus, none of these bite. The question is whether your constraint is the notes workflow or the call quality.
Krisp optimises noise removal and accepts a cloud transcription step, a trial cliff, and a notes layer secondary to the noise core. Clearminutes optimises a complete local assistant and accepts a lighter noise layer.
Your hard requirement is a complete AI meeting assistant that transcribes, summarises, and syncs action items entirely on-device. Transcription and summarisation run locally on Whisper and a built-in LLM (Gemma), with no cloud upload at any step. Clearminutes supports bring-your-own API keys, runs offline, and its in-app network monitor shows zero outbound audio connections, so the privacy claim is something you can check in the app. There's no trial cliff and no per-seat subscription; the free tier is real and Pro is a one-off price. The trade is the noise layer: Clearminutes doesn't offer Krisp's accent conversion or 750-term custom vocabulary. For healthcare, legal, or regulated work where the constraint is that audio never leaves the device, that's the structural difference. If your calls are noisy you can still run Krisp's local noise removal alongside a local-first assistant and keep the notes step on-device.
Noise cancellation is your primary need. You want its accent conversion, 750-term custom vocabulary, 16-language support, and speaker diarization, and you value the Salesforce, HubSpot, and Slack CRM sync across macOS and Windows with audio file import. Krisp is the right call when noise removal matters more than a complete local assistant, and you're fine with the transcription step using the cloud and the 14-day trial giving way to a per-seat subscription. For field sales, support, or open-plan teams whose calls sound bad, Krisp is the best noise option here.
Do the maths for your team before you commit. A 10-person team on Krisp's paid plan pays $960-1,800 a year; a one-off local Pro price doesn't compound. The noise edge is real and worth paying for if that's your problem. The notes layer is where the audio leaves the device, and that's the wall to interrogate before you standardise.
Noise cancellation runs locally and works offline. Transcription may use the cloud, so the notes step needs an internet connection. There's no fully offline meeting-assistant path.
Yes. Krisp runs on macOS and Windows, works with any meeting platform, and supports audio file import. There's no Linux build.
A 14-day trial gives way to a limited free tier. Full features need the $8 Pro or $15 Business a month plan. There's no one-off Pro option — it's a per-seat monthly subscription.
Krisp offers a bot-free option — no calendar bot joins the call. But the notes step still uses cloud processing, so bot-free and on-device aren't the same thing here.
No. Summaries run on Krisp's cloud AI only. There's no bring-your-own-API-key option and no on-device summarisation path.
Noise cancellation runs locally on your device. Transcription may use the cloud, so audio can leave the device at the notes step even though the noise core stays local.
Yes. Krisp labels speakers in the transcript, alongside action items and chat-with-meetings. The diarization runs as part of the assistant layer, which uses cloud processing.
16 languages. That's narrower than several tools in this comparison — Fathom covers 28, tl;dv covers 30+. For a multilingual team it's a real constraint.
Not where the constraint is that audio must not leave the device. The transcription step may use the cloud, so meeting audio can be uploaded for the notes even though the noise core is local.
Last updated: 2026-04-01. Compared from each tool's public pricing and feature data (see sources), as of the last-updated date.
Sources: Krisp official site (2026-06-21), Krisp pricing page (2026-06-21), Krisp 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.