Fireflies and the other product names on this page are trademarks of their respective owners. They are used here only to identify those products for comparison. Recordist is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any of them. Statements about Fireflies describe what its own pages said on the date shown, and the pages are listed under the table; tell us at hello@recordist.app if something is out of date and we will correct it.
Recordist and Fireflies
Fireflies: Cloud notetaker with the Fred bot, a desktop app and many integrations.
What we admire. Fireflies connects to a remarkable range of the tools teams already use, and it has made searching across a team's calls feel natural.
Fireflies is the integration-heavy option among cloud notetakers. You invite its notetaker, Fred, to a meeting or let it join your calendar meetings on its own, and its desktop app for Windows and Mac records without a bot. Notes and call logs can flow into CRMs such as Salesforce and HubSpot and into Slack, AskFred answers questions about your meetings, and an MCP server brings your meetings into AI tools such as Claude and ChatGPT.
Recordist covers the recording, transcription and notes itself, keeps them with you, gives your agents local access, and has no integration catalogue. Which one fits you comes down to where you want your meetings to live.
| Feature | Fireflies | Recordist |
|---|---|---|
| Joins the call as a bot | Fred does, and can join calendar meetings on its own; the desktop app records without it | Never |
| Where audio is transcribed | Fireflies' servers, in the US and other countries | On-device (Whisper) |
| Free plan | Yes | Unlimited recording and transcription; 7-day Pro trial, then 3 AI notes a month |
| Price | Pro about $10/seat/mo yearly, $18 monthly (September 2026) | Free with no time limit; Pro $9/mo or $90/yr for anyone who subscribes by 8 Jan 2027, kept while subscribed; $15/mo or $144/yr after |
| Agent access | MCP server; API on Business and Enterprise; AskFred | Local MCP server and A2A agent |
| Integrations | CRMs including Salesforce and HubSpot; Slack | Exports, MCP, A2A |
What this page says about Fireflies comes from these pages, read on the date shown. Prices and plans change, so check Fireflies's site before you decide.
- fireflies.ai: Fred, automatic joining of calendar meetings, the desktop app, the MCP server, integrations (read 7 October 2026)
- fireflies.ai/pricing: plans and AskFred (7 October 2026); Pro prices (September 2026, the last time the page showed them to us) (read 7 October 2026)
- fireflies.ai/privacy-policy: recordings, transcripts and summaries; servers in the United States and other countries (read 7 October 2026)
- Fireflies guide: recording without a bot in the desktop app for Windows and Mac (read 7 October 2026)
The bot
Fred joins as a participant, and you can set it to join your calendar meetings automatically. The Fireflies desktop app records from your machine's audio instead, with no bot in the call.
Recordist never joins a call. It records your microphone and the call's audio as it reaches you, so it does not appear in the participant list. It copies a short notice for you to read out or paste into the chat and keeps a mark of when you said you gave it, but telling people stays your job. A card asks before each recording, and nothing is captured until you click Record, unless you add that app to the automatic-recording list in Settings, which is empty until you do. The recording-law guide explains where consent is required.
Where the audio goes
Fireflies' privacy policy describes capturing audio and visual recordings of meetings and generating transcripts and summaries, and it says Fireflies and its service providers store personal information on servers in the United States and other countries. Integrations then copy notes into the other tools you connect.
Recordist keeps audio, transcripts and notes in one folder on your machine. Transcription happens there, and so do notes by default; with your own cloud key, the transcript text goes to the provider you chose and the Privacy Ledger records it. Delete all my data, in Settings → Privacy, removes your meetings in one step.
Price and limits
Fireflies has Free, Pro, Business and Enterprise plans. When its pricing page last showed us prices, in September 2026, Pro was $18 per seat per month, or about $10 a month billed yearly.
Recordist is free for unlimited recording, transcription, search and export, with 7 days of Pro, then 3 AI notes a month. Pro is $9 a month or $90 a year for anyone who subscribes by 8 January 2027, and that price stays for as long as the subscription stays active; from 9 January 2027 new subscribers pay $15 a month or $144 a year. A team of 3 to 49 people buys Pro in one checkout, with a personal key for each person; larger organisations write to hello@recordist.app. Because Recordist stores nothing for you, there is no storage tier to buy.
Agent access and offline use
Fireflies has an MCP server for AI tools such as Claude and ChatGPT, and an API on its Business and Enterprise plans. Both reach the meetings in your Fireflies account.
Recordist's MCP server and A2A agent run on-device and read your local database, with no API key and no hosted service in the middle. Recording, transcription, search and local notes all work with no network connection once the models are downloaded.
When Fireflies is the better choice
If your workflow depends on notes flowing automatically into Salesforce, HubSpot or Slack, Fireflies has built for exactly that and Recordist has not. If you want a notetaker to join your calendar meetings for you, Fireflies does that and Recordist does not.
When Recordist may suit you better
If you want the notes and the agent access without a bot in the room or a copy of your meetings in someone else's cloud, Recordist does that and keeps the record with you.
Try Recordist free, with no bot in the call.
The Free plan gives you unlimited recording, transcription, search and export, with no account. On the default setup, nothing in the Privacy Ledger carries your meetings.
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