GTM Ranked

Fireflies.ai vs Granola

Updated based on independent user evidence
Verdict

Independent users prefer Granola (73/100 from 33 rated comments) over Fireflies.ai (58/100 from 23 rated comments). Granola is best for People in back-to-back meetings who want notes without a bot joining the call; Fireflies.ai is best for People in back-to-back meetings who want transcripts, summaries and action items without taking notes.

Fireflies.ai logoFireflies.aiGranola logoGranola
Sentiment
Score58/10073/100
Rank in category#3#1
Rated comments2333
Best forPeople in back-to-back meetings who want transcripts, summaries and action items without taking notes; Teams that want meeting notes pushed into Drive, a CRM or a task tool; Individuals who want a free or low-cost recorder, including on a phone for in-person conversationsPeople in back-to-back meetings who want notes without a bot joining the call; External or in-person meetings where you don't control the call platform; Users who want to steer notes with their own jottings or prompts and query them later
Skip it ifTeams that would share AI notes with clients without a human check; Calls where a visible bot participant is unwelcomeTeams that need accurate who-said-what attribution in transcripts
Starting price$10/seat/mo$14/user/mo
Pricing (vendor-stated)Free plan ($0; unlimited transcription, limited AI summaries, 400 minutes of storage per team). Pro is $10/seat/mo billed annually or $18 monthly; Business is $19/seat/mo billed annually or $29 monthly; Enterprise is $39/seat/mo, annual only. No free trial mentioned.Free Basic plan ($0, 30-day meeting history, limited AI chat and integrations). Business is $14/user/mo with unlimited history, API and integrations; Enterprise is $35/user/mo with SSO, SCIM and admin controls. The page does not state monthly vs annual billing.

Independent users who name a preference mostly like Fireflies: 16 of 23 non-promotional opinions are favourable, chiefly from people with heavy meeting loads who say it replaces their own note-taking, lets them query past meetings, and pushes notes into Drive, CRMs or task tools, with some running happily on the free tier. The trade-off is reliability of the output and the app: users report AI notes that get details wrong or miss words, one calls it the buggiest software they have used, and others dislike a bot joining their calls. Over a quarter of the 100 matched comments were promotional, mostly rival notetakers naming Fireflies as the thing to switch from, and are discounted here.

Users like

  • Heavy meeting users say it takes note-taking off their plate and catches actions and next steps they would otherwise lose[1][2][3][4][5]
  • Past meetings become a searchable record: users ask it what was discussed, and one pulls answers from it through an MCP connection[1][2]
  • Integrations push notes and to-dos into Google Drive, CRMs and planners, and one team gets a prep email before recurring meetings[1][2][3]
  • Cheap enough to justify personally: one user says the free version does all they need, another pays about $25 a month out of pocket[1][2][3]

Users complain about

  • AI notes can be wrong: a consultant says a client's Fireflies auto-posts incorrect notes after every call, and another user says it catches only about 80% of spoken words[1][2]
  • Stability complaints: one user who wanted to like it calls it the buggiest web and production app they have used, crashing constantly despite a good UI[1]
  • The bot joining calls is a reason users leave: one switched to a bot-free tool for that reason[1]
  • CRM auto-posting can misfire: with Zoho it posted a call note to hundreds of deals[1]

Independent users, mostly product managers and salespeople, are strongly positive: they like that no bot joins the call, that it frees them to listen instead of typing, and several rate its notes above the built-in Zoom, Teams, Copilot and Gong summaries, with some paying for it themselves. The recurring weakness is attribution and fidelity: users say it is poor at labelling who said what, one sales team calls its transcripts really bad, and one PM found its summaries compress away detail. Promotional comments were a small minority, mostly rival note-takers pitching their own product.

Users like

  • No bot joins the meeting: it captures audio on your device, and users also use it for in-person meetings[1][2][3][4][5]
  • Users rate its transcripts and notes above built-in options: better than Teams, Copilot, Zoom and Meet notes, and than Gong's AI summaries[1][2][3][4]
  • Lets users listen instead of typing during calls; several call it a big time saver and one seller pays the $15 a month out of pocket[1][2][3][4][5]
  • Merges the user's own typed notes with the transcript, lets them prompt how notes are reshaped, and answers questions across past meetings[1][2][3][4]

Users complain about

  • Weak at labelling who said what, which users say costs context; one sales team goes further and calls its transcripts really bad[1][2][3]
  • Summaries compress away detail: one PM found follow-up work in Claude missed edge cases that were only in the full transcript[1]

Frequently asked questions

Independent users prefer Granola (73/100 from 33 rated comments) over Fireflies.ai (58/100 from 23 rated comments). Granola is best for People in back-to-back meetings who want notes without a bot joining the call; Fireflies.ai is best for People in back-to-back meetings who want transcripts, summaries and action items without taking notes.