Best Free Fireflies.ai Alternatives in 2026
Fireflies gives free accounts a fixed pool of transcription minutes for the life of the account, not a monthly allowance. Take calls daily and you will burn through it in a few weeks. These AI meeting notetakers either reset on a cycle or do not meter you at all.
Quick Answer
Best free Fireflies.ai alternative by use case:
- Best overall free: Fathom — unlimited recordings, transcripts and summaries, no counter
- Sharing meeting moments: tl;dv — unlimited free recordings plus clip-to-Slack
- Familiar monthly allowance: Otter.ai — 300 minutes that reset every month
- Non-English calls: Notta — 58 languages on the free tier
- Noisy environments: Krisp — 60 free minutes back every day
- Skip if you need free: Granola — best notes, but the free tier is a capped trial
Want the full list including paid options?
Why Fireflies' Free Tier Falls Short
Fireflies is a strong product. The transcription is accurate, the AI summaries are usable, and the integration list is the longest in this category. The problem is the shape of the free plan: new accounts get a fixed pool of transcription credits that applies to the lifetime of the account rather than resetting each month. Storage of past transcripts is capped too.
If you take three calls a week, that pool lasts a couple of months and then stops. There is no reset date to wait for — the only path forward is a paid plan. That makes "Fireflies has a free tier" true but misleading if you are choosing a notetaker you intend to keep using.
So the list below is organised around one question: does the free allowance come back? Fathom and tl;dv do not meter recordings at all. Otter, Notta and Krisp reset on a monthly or daily cycle. Granola is included because its notes are the best here — but its free tier is a capped trial, and this article says so rather than padding the count.
Top 6 Free Fireflies.ai Alternatives
Fathom
Best Overall FreeBest free Fireflies alternative — unlimited recording and transcription on a permanent free plan
Best for: Solo operators and small teams who take calls daily and refuse to meter them
✓ Strengths
- •Unlimited meetings on free — there is no minute counter to run down, unlike Fireflies' lifetime cap
- •AI summary generated within about 30 seconds of the call ending
- •Highlight buttons during the call let you mark moments without taking notes
- •Works across Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams on the free tier
✗ Limitations
- •Team-wide search and shared recording libraries are on paid tiers
- •No CRM auto-sync on free — that is the main Premium upsell
- •Fewer integrations than Fireflies overall
tl;dv
Best Free for Sharing ClipsUnlimited free recordings with timestamped clips you can share into Slack
Best for: Teams who share meeting moments rather than whole transcripts
✓ Strengths
- •Unlimited recordings and transcripts on free, in 30+ languages
- •Clip-and-share is the best in this category — cut a 40-second moment and drop it in Slack
- •Timestamped notes that link straight back into the recording
- •Free plan covers both Zoom and Google Meet
✗ Limitations
- •AI summary and AI-question credits are metered on free
- •CRM push (HubSpot, Salesforce) is a paid feature
- •Recording library organisation gets thin once you pass a few hundred calls
Otter.ai
Best Monthly AllowanceThe most familiar free notetaker — 300 monthly minutes that actually reset
Best for: People who want a monthly allowance rather than a one-time lifetime pool
✓ Strengths
- •The 300 minutes reset every month — Fireflies' 800 free minutes never do
- •Live transcription you can read as the meeting happens
- •Strong mobile app for in-person conversations and interviews
- •Speaker identification is more reliable than most free tiers
✗ Limitations
- •30-minute cap per conversation cuts long meetings in half
- •AI chat and summary features are heavily limited on free
- •Export formats are restricted until you pay
Notta
Best for Non-English CallsFree transcription with the widest language coverage of any free tier here
Best for: Multilingual teams and anyone transcribing non-English calls
✓ Strengths
- •Covers 58 languages on the free tier — far beyond Fireflies' free coverage
- •Real-time translation alongside transcription
- •Cheapest paid upgrade in this list if the free minutes run out
- •Handles uploaded audio files, not just live meetings
✗ Limitations
- •120 free minutes is the smallest monthly allowance here
- •3-minute cap on uploaded files makes the free tier awkward for recordings
- •AI summaries are a paid feature
Krisp
Best Free Audio QualityNoise cancellation first, transcription second — 60 free minutes per day
Best for: Anyone taking calls from a noisy room who also wants a transcript
✓ Strengths
- •Daily reset rather than monthly — 60 minutes back every single day
- •Best-in-class background noise and echo removal on the free plan
- •App-agnostic: it sits on your microphone, so it works with any meeting tool
- •Meeting notes and summaries generated from the same capture
✗ Limitations
- •Transcription quality trails the dedicated notetakers here
- •Daily minute cap is awkward on heavy meeting days
- •No shared team meeting library
Granola
Best Notes QualityNotes that merge your typing with the transcript — free tier is capped, not unlimited
Best for: People who already take rough notes and want AI to fill in the gaps
✓ Strengths
- •The only tool here that blends your own typed notes with the transcript
- •No meeting bot joins the call — it captures system audio locally
- •Output reads like notes a person wrote, not a machine transcript
- •Fast, quiet Mac app with almost no setup
✗ Limitations
- •The free tier is a capped trial, not a recurring allowance — this is Fireflies' problem again
- •Mac-first; Windows support lags
- •Little value if you do not type during calls
Fireflies vs Free Alternatives: Key Differences
| Feature | Fireflies (Free) | Best Free Option | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free minute model | 800 minutes for the life of the account | Fathom (unlimited) | Fireflies' free pool never resets — this is the core complaint |
| Recurring free allowance | No | Otter.ai / Notta / Krisp | Monthly or daily resets rather than a lifetime cap |
| AI summaries on free | Limited | Fathom | Fathom generates full summaries free, in about 30 seconds |
| Per-meeting length cap | None, but drains the pool | Fathom / tl;dv | Otter caps free conversations at 30 minutes |
| Clip sharing | Paid tiers | tl;dv | Cut and share a moment without exporting the whole call |
| Language coverage | Good on paid | Notta (58 languages) | Best free option for non-English meetings |
| No bot in the meeting | Bot joins | Granola | Captures system audio instead of joining as a participant |
| CRM sync | Paid | None free | Every tool here paywalls CRM push — budget for it if you need it |
Free Plan vs Capped Trial: The Distinction That Matters
Meeting notetakers are unusually loose with the word "free", and three different things are being described. An unmetered free plan — Fathom, tl;dv — lets you record every call you take, forever, with the paid tier selling team features instead of minutes. A recurring allowance — Otter, Notta, Krisp — gives you a fixed budget that resets monthly or daily. A lifetime cap, which is what Fireflies and Granola offer, works until it is spent and then never renews.
Which you want depends on call volume. If you take a handful of meetings a month, almost anything here works and you should pick on transcript quality. If you are on calls daily, only an unmetered plan or a generous monthly reset will survive contact with your calendar — which is why Fathom is the recommendation for most people leaving Fireflies.
One more thing worth budgeting for: every tool in this list paywalls CRM sync. If the reason you want a notetaker is to get call notes into HubSpot or Salesforce automatically, you are going to pay somebody — the question is only who. Fireflies is genuinely competitive on that axis, so this article is about the free tier, not a claim that the product is bad.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Fireflies.ai have a real free plan?
Fireflies gives free accounts a fixed pool of transcription credits that covers the lifetime of the account rather than resetting monthly, plus limited transcript storage. You can keep using the app after the pool is spent, but new meetings will not be transcribed without upgrading. Functionally it is an extended trial rather than a free tier you can rely on long term.
What is the best free Fireflies alternative in 2026?
Fathom, because its free plan does not meter recordings at all — unlimited meetings, transcripts and AI summaries, with the paid tier selling team search and CRM sync instead of minutes. If you mainly want to share moments from calls rather than whole transcripts, tl;dv is the better pick and is also unmetered on recordings.
Is there a completely free AI meeting notetaker?
Fathom is the closest to genuinely free: unlimited recordings and AI summaries with no credit counter. tl;dv is unmetered on recordings and transcripts but meters AI summary credits on the free plan. Both are permanent free plans rather than trials.
Which free notetaker works without a bot joining the meeting?
Granola captures system audio locally instead of joining the call as a participant, so nothing shows up in the attendee list. The tradeoff is that its free tier is a capped meeting count rather than a recurring allowance, and it is Mac-first. If a visible bot is a dealbreaker in client calls, it may still be worth the paid plan.
What is the best free option for non-English meetings?
Notta, which covers 58 languages on the free tier and includes real-time translation. Its 120 free minutes per month is the smallest allowance in this list, but it resets, and its paid upgrade is the cheapest here at roughly $8/month annually.
How many free minutes does Otter.ai give you?
Otter's free plan includes 300 transcription minutes per month with a 30-minute cap on any single conversation. The monthly reset is the key difference from Fireflies — you get the allowance back every month rather than spending it once. The per-conversation cap is the catch: hour-long meetings get cut off halfway.
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