On-device: audio never leaves your machine. No bot, no cloud.
People look for Meetily alternatives for three reasons: the missing integrations, the diarization gap, and the open-source-project shape rather than a polished product. Meetily isn't a bad tool. It hits a wall for anyone who needs a finished product rather than a codebase they can audit.
Meetily is an open-source, MIT-licensed, local-first meeting transcription app built on Tauri. Whisper runs on-device for transcription, and no bot joins the call. Summaries use bring-your-own API keys or a hosted Pro credits path. The free tier is genuinely free: unlimited local transcription, no cap on history, community support, and the right to self-host. The Pro tier at $10 a month annual adds hosted AI credits, enhanced transcription models, PDF and DOCX export, auto-detect meetings, Windows GPU acceleration, and priority email support. macOS and Windows get packaged apps. Linux is buildable from source. The project is actively maintained.
The open-source foundation is where Meetily does well. Audio never leaves the device. The MIT license means you can audit every line, and there's no commercial entity collecting data. For a developer who wants a local transcription tool they can read, modify, and self-host, that's a strong proposition. The unlimited free tier means you pay nothing for the core workflow, and the BYO API keys path routes summaries through whatever provider you already pay for. If you hold an OpenAI or Anthropic key, Meetily lets you reuse that spend. The ~194 open GitHub issues as of May 2026 tell you the project is active, but they also tell you the rough edges are still visible, and the issue tracker is where you go to find out if someone else has already hit yours.
The walls are the walls of an open-source project that hasn't become a product. There are no integrations: no CRM sync, no task-manager hookup, no calendar automation. Speaker diarization is listed as "coming soon (Pro)," which means today a transcript is a flat text stream with no speaker labels. There's no guided onboarding, so a new user installs the app, configures Whisper, sets up API keys, and troubleshoots alone or via the community. Commercial support doesn't exist. The free tier is community support only, and the Pro tier offers priority email support but no company stands behind the product. Linux support means building from source, which is fine for a developer and a blocker for anyone else. The user community is smaller than the commercial alternatives, which means fewer ready answers and fewer tutorials.
This is a local-first-versus-local-first comparison. Both Meetily and Clearminutes run Whisper on-device, both keep audio on the machine, and both are desktop apps. The framing isn't local versus cloud. It's polished commercial product versus fully auditable MIT codebase. The audio path and the privacy story are the same on both sides, so the decision is about what's built on top of that local foundation. 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.
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.
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.
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 | Krisp | tl;dv | Trilla | Otter.ai | Fathom | Notion AI Meeting Notes | Clearminutes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meeting bots | No | 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 |
| Local processing | No (cloud-only) | 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) | No | Yes (on-device models) |
| Speaker identification | Yes | 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 | Yes (limited history) | 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) | 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 an actively maintained open-source project, and each one bites a specific kind of buyer.
They bite only when your requirement is working diarization, real integrations, or commercial support. If you're a developer who wants an MIT-licensed local Whisper tool and can live without those three, none of these bite, and Meetily's free unlimited transcription is worth the install.
Two solid local-first tools with different priorities. Meetily optimises the open-source, auditable, unlimited-free foundation and accepts no integrations, diarization still coming, and community support. Clearminutes optimises the polished product and accepts a commercial license instead of an MIT one.
Your hard requirement is working speaker diarization today, integrations that sync to the tools you already use, or commercial support from a vendor who's accountable for the product. Clearminutes takes the same local-first foundation Meetily uses, Whisper on-device, audio on the machine, a desktop app, and adds speaker diarization that ships now rather than "coming soon," integrations (TickTick, Outline), guided onboarding that walks a new user through setup, and active commercial development with a company behind it. The trade is the license: Clearminutes is a commercial product, not an MIT-licensed codebase you can audit and self-host. For a team that needs diarization, integrations, or a vendor to email, that's the right trade.
You want a fully auditable MIT-licensed codebase, unlimited free local transcription, and the right to self-host. Meetily runs Whisper on-device, keeps audio on your machine, supports bring-your-own API keys for summaries, and charges nothing for the core workflow. The Pro tier at $10 a month annual adds hosted AI credits, enhanced transcription models, PDF and DOCX export, auto-detect meetings, Windows GPU acceleration, and priority email support. If your constraint is auditability, open-source licensing, or zero cost for unlimited transcription, and you can live without diarization, integrations, and commercial support, Meetily is the right pick. For a developer who reads source before they trust a tool, the MIT license is the deciding fact, not a nice-to-have.
Write down the one constraint you won't drop. If it's "I need speaker labels on my transcripts today," Clearminutes wins. If it's "I need an MIT-licensed codebase I can audit and self-host," Meetily wins. If it's "I need a vendor to email when it breaks," Clearminutes wins.
The strengths and the weaknesses share a root cause. The open-source project is what gives you the MIT license, the auditability, and the self-host rights. It's also what means the polish, the integrations, and the support layer don't exist yet. You can't keep the MIT license and get the commercial support, and you can't keep the open-source project and get the finished product. A buyer who wants the auditability accepts the rough edges. A buyer who wants the polish accepts the closed source.
Last updated: 2026-05-01. Compared from each tool's public pricing and feature data (see sources), as of the last-updated date.
Sources: Meetily GitHub repository (2026-06-21), Meetily project site (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.