GILD verdict
Choose Fireflies if the team needs a replayable, shared record of external calls that flows into the CRM.
Choose Granola if people attend their own meetings and want private notes with no bot and no recording. Set Fireflies' auto-join, recap, and sharing defaults before rollout. The training terms differ too: Fireflies does not train on meeting content, while Granola may use anonymized data unless a user opts out or the workspace is on Enterprise. Billed monthly, Granola Business costs US$14 a user against US$29 for Fireflies Business, US$15 less. Fireflies Business billed annually is US$19 a user, and Granola publishes no annual price, so the monthly figures are the like-for-like comparison.
GILD found no named team that has published running both or moving between them. Fireflies keeps a meeting record, and Granola keeps only each person's notes. Fireflies' notetaker joins calls as a visible participant, keeps audio, a transcript, and video from Pro, and emails recaps to attendees; its desktop and mobile apps also capture without a bot. Granola captures device audio with no bot, keeps text only, and builds notes on what each user types.
Choosing between Fireflies and Granola
Choose Fireflies if
- The team needs audio or video to replay, file uploads, or a notetaker that records meetings nobody from the team attends.
- Calls should land in HubSpot or Salesforce, with recaps sent to participants and a shared workspace everyone can search.
- Meetings run in many languages: Fireflies lists more than 100, with auto-detect and a multi-language mode in beta.
Choose Granola if
- People attend their own meetings and want notes shaped by what they type, with no bot in the call and no recording kept.
- Notes should stay private until someone shares them, so turn off the default that sends them to every invitee.
- A monthly seat matters: Granola Business is US$14 per user billed monthly, against US$18 for Fireflies Pro billed monthly.
Side by side
| Dimension | Fireflies | Granola |
|---|---|---|
| Capture | A notetaker bot joins Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and other platforms from the calendar. Take Notes on the Mac and Windows desktop app, the Chrome extension, and iOS and Android apps capture without a bot | Desktop apps for macOS and Windows capture system audio and microphone with no bot. iOS and Android apps for in-person meetings |
| Recording | Bot capture keeps audio and, from Pro, video. Take Notes keeps no audio or video file. Files can be uploaded on every plan | No audio kept: the desktop apps stream audio to the transcription provider and save none. Pre-recorded files cannot be uploaded |
| Defaults that reach other people | By default the notetaker auto-joins all calendar meetings and emails recaps to everyone on the invite. It opens new meetings to teammates and anyone with the link until a user or admin changes them | Notes stay private until shared. Each user sets default link sharing to anyone with the link, only the company, or private, and Enterprise admins set a ceiling |
| Notice to participants | The bot is listed as a participant. Zoom and the Google Meet SDK ask participants to approve. An optional 1-hour email lets invitees decline. Desktop notices are on by default | A meeting-chat message and a video watermark that users enable for themselves or admins enable across the team |
| Plans and priceList prices in US dollars. | Free. Pro US$18 per seat a month billed monthly or US$10 billed annually. Business US$29 or US$19. Enterprise US$39 per seat a month, billed annually only | Basic free. Business US$14 per user per month, billed monthly. Enterprise US$35 per user per month |
| AI usage | Summaries included. AI Skills, live AskFred, Autofill CRM, and Voice Agents draw on a team pool of 20 to 50 AI credits, with paid packs from US$5 a month | AI notes built on what the user types, and AI chat within and across meetings, on every plan. Basic shows 30 days of meeting history |
| Model training | Meeting content never trains Fireflies' or its vendors' models, on every plan, and vendors keep nothing after processing | Anonymized data may improve Granola's models by default, with an opt-out at any time. Enterprise workspaces are opted out by default |
| Languages | More than 100, with auto-detect and a multi-language mode in beta | 31 on desktop and 17 on mobile |
| Compliance and admin | SOC 2 Type II and GDPR. HIPAA with Private Storage and a BAA, SSO, SCIM, and retention controls on Enterprise. US storage by default | SOC 2 Type II. Data on AWS in the US. SSO and SCIM on Enterprise with at least 50 members or seats |
| 50 people, 20 meeting hours each a monthList prices; taxes, discounts and AI credits excluded. | US$950 a month on Business at US$19 a seat billed annually. GILD's calculation from published rates, read Oct 28, 20261 | US$700 a month on Business at US$14 a seat. GILD's calculation from published rates, read Oct 28, 202611 |
What practitioners report, side by side
Each product's figures come from its own practitioners, for the group you pick.
Overall signal
All users rate Granola +68, 52 points above Fireflies at +16. Most of the gap is in complaints, with 20 of Fireflies's 51 sources negative against 5 of Granola's 57.
The score is how far positive sources lead negative ones, per 100 sources from all users that take a side. Each author behind these scores wrote one of them, so each source is one vote.
A lead of a fifth of the sources reads positive and a lead of half strong positive, with the same lines below zero. The dots run positive, mixed, negative. Run a pilot on a month of real meetings to measure how much each summary needs editing before it is shared.
Footprint on the AI Knowledge Work stack
They differ on one of 7 layers. On Data analysis, Fireflies supports it and Granola touches it. Coverage is each product's placement on this stack, as its product page shows it. Core is a job the product owns; Supports and Touches are jobs it helps with. Coverage says nothing about how well a product does them.
| Layer | Fireflies | Granola |
|---|---|---|
| Analyze | ||
| Data analysis | Supports | Touches |
The 6 layers where they match
| Layer | Fireflies | Granola |
|---|---|---|
| Assist | ||
| AI assistant | Touches | Touches |
| Find | ||
| Web research | Touches | Touches |
| Enterprise search | Supports | Supports |
| Create | ||
| Documents | Supports | Supports |
| Meeting notes | Core | Core |
| Automate | ||
| Automation | Supports | Supports |
What practitioners praise
Among all users, Granola alone has four praise themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. Bot-Free Capture and Note Quality lead, at 17 of 17 and 15 of 17. Fireflies alone has three praise themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. Notes & Action Items and Searchable Record lead, at 13 of 13 and 12 of 12.
| Praised for | Fireflies | Granola |
|---|---|---|
| Notes & Action Items | 13 of 13 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Searchable Record | 12 of 12 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Integrations & API | 8 of 11 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Bot-Free Capture | Not a theme in its sources | 17 of 17 |
| Note Quality | Not a theme in its sources | 15 of 17 |
| Meeting Memory | Not a theme in its sources | 14 of 14 |
| Your Own Notes | Not a theme in its sources | 6 of 6 |
Each count is the sources that praise a theme, or raise it as a concern, out of those that discuss it. A row pairs the two products when both carry a theme under the same or an equivalent name.
A count ending in "so far" has under 5 sources from 3 authors among all users. "Not a theme in its sources" means GILD found no theme of that name in that product's sources.
What practitioners raise as concerns
Among all users, Granola alone has three concern themes that reach 5 sources from 3 authors. Platform Gaps and Privacy & Consent lead, at 7 of 7 and 7 of 12. Both carry Price & Plan Limits. It is raised in 3 of the 5 Fireflies sources that discuss it, against 3 of 7 for Granola. Bot Control & Privacy and Fit & Reliability reach 5 sources from 3 authors only for Fireflies, at 18 of 23 and 5 of 6. Granola needs a pilot on the same meetings before you choose on either.
| Raised as a concern | Fireflies | Granola |
|---|---|---|
| Price & Plan Limits | 3 of 5 | 3 of 7 |
| Bot Control & Privacy | 18 of 23 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Fit & Reliability | 5 of 6 | Not a theme in its sources |
| Platform Gaps | Not a theme in its sources | 7 of 7 |
| Privacy & Consent | Not a theme in its sources | 7 of 12 |
| Transcript Accuracy | 2 of 3 so far | 2 of 7 |
19 sources
- Fireflies pricing & plans
- Fireflies Knowledge Base: AI Credits Pricing and Overview
- Fireflies Knowledge Base: Auto-join and email recap settings
- Fireflies Knowledge Base: How to configure privacy settings for your meeting recaps
- Fireflies Knowledge Base: Recording consent and meeting compliance
- Fireflies Knowledge Base: How to record meetings without a bot on the Desktop App
- Fireflies Knowledge Base: Does the desktop app save an audio recording?
- Fireflies Knowledge Base: Supported languages
- Fireflies Knowledge Base: How Fireflies.ai keeps your information safe
- Fireflies Knowledge Base: Learn about the Fireflies Enterprise plan
- Granola pricing
- Granola Help Center: Subscriptions and billing
- Granola Help Center: How transcription works
- Granola Help Center: Multi-language support
- Granola Help Center: Models & training
- Granola Help Center: Let People Know You're Using Granola
- Granola Help Center: Sharing controls
- Granola Help Center: Security, Privacy & Data FAQs
- Granola Help Center: Set up SSO and SCIM