Fireflies.ai vs tl;dv
 Fireflies.ai |  tl;dv | |
|---|---|---|
| Sentiment | ||
| Score | 58/100 | 30/100 |
| Rank in category | #3 | Unranked (under 8 rated comments) |
| Rated comments | 23 | 7 |
| Best for | People 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 conversations | Small teams that want calls on Google Meet, Zoom or Teams transcribed and summarized; Product and research teams recording user interviews; European teams looking for an EU-based notetaker |
| Skip it if | Teams that would share AI notes with clients without a human check; Calls where a visible bot participant is unwelcome | Meetings where speakers switch between languages; Users who want transcripts on the free plan |
| Starting price | $10/seat/mo | EUR 18/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. | Per seat in EUR: Free plan at 0; Pro EUR 29/seat/mo monthly or EUR 18/seat/mo billed annually; Business EUR 39/seat/mo monthly or EUR 29/seat/mo billed annually. The page does not list a free trial or plan limits. |
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 discussion is thin: only about seven non-promotional comments give a first-hand opinion, and most other mentions are tl;dv as a name in lists of notetakers. Those users like its summaries for client calls, user interviews and competitor tracking, while complaints cover transcript export locked behind a paid tier, poor transcripts in mixed-language meetings and a bot that sends sign-up invites to colleagues. Many comments were promotional: a cluster of near-identical posts from different accounts in July and August 2026 praised tl;dv in the same feature talking points, a tl;dv account linked its own comparison pages, and several more plugged other products.
Users like
- Users rely on it to transcribe client meetings and produce summaries and follow-up minutes, which also leaves a record if a client disputes what was said[1][2][3]
- Works for user research: one user records discovery interviews with it and uses the transcription, AI summary notes and ask-a-question feature[1]
- One product team has sales reps record calls with it and pulls competitor mentions into a report for a competitive intelligence dashboard[1]
- A European user says it is EU-based with servers in Frankfurt, joins Zoom and Teams calls you do not host, and captures action items and decisions[1]
Users complain about
- Copying or pasting a transcript requires a premium tier[1]
- Transcripts can be very poor when speakers switch languages mid-meeting; one tester found it no better than Google Meet's own transcript[1]
- Its bot is hard to block in Zoom and can send sign-up invites to other attendees on behalf of a user who installed it[1]