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Granola vs Fireflies.ai: Lightweight Notes vs. Deep Meeting Automation

Granola and Fireflies.ai both automate meeting notes, but Fireflies goes much further into CRM automation and in-call coaching, while Granola stays deliberately lightweight.

CapabilityGranolaFireflies.ai
No bot joins the callYesPartial
Records video/screenNoPartial
AI summariesYesYes
Real-time in-call coachingNoYes
CRM / ATS integrationsPartialYes

Granola and Fireflies.ai both automate meeting notes, but they capture very differently. Granola explicitly doesn't record or save audio or video — its output is text notes merged from your own typing and a live transcript. Fireflies is bot-based by default (with a bot-free desktop capture option), and can optionally record video/screen as an add-on on its Pro+ tiers, layered onto its core meeting-audio product.

Fireflies leans harder into meeting automation: unlimited AI summaries even on its free tier, "AskFred" chat across your meeting history, real-time in-call coaching via "Live Assist," and 200+ "AI Skills" plugging into Salesforce, HubSpot, Asana, Trello, Greenhouse, and Lever. Granola's integration surface — HubSpot, Notion, Slack, Attio, Affinity, MCP — is narrower but still meaningful for note-taking and CRM workflows.

Both process audio in the cloud rather than on-device — Granola despite its "no bot" framing, Fireflies as a core part of how it works (Google Cloud and AWS), though Fireflies' Enterprise tier does offer a customer-managed storage option.

The 3rd option

Or process everything on-device instead of in the cloud

Both Granola and Fireflies route audio through cloud infrastructure to generate their notes and summaries. Doculigent's transcription and AI summarization run on-device by default — nothing has to leave your machine to get a transcript or a summary.

And unlike either tool, Doculigent actually records the video: your full screen and camera, not just meeting audio, so you have the source recording to go back to, plus chat-with-video to ask questions about it afterward.

Frequently asked questions

What are Granola alternatives?
Alternatives to Granola include Fireflies.ai (bot-based meeting automation with deep CRM integrations) and Doculigent, which records the actual screen and camera with on-device transcription — see how Doculigent compares to Granola.
What are Fireflies.ai alternatives?
Alternatives to Fireflies.ai include Granola (lightweight, notes-first, no meeting bot) and Doculigent, a general-purpose screen recorder with on-device AI rather than a meeting-specific, cloud-processed assistant — see how Doculigent compares to Fireflies.ai.
Does Fireflies.ai record video?
Video/screen capture is an opt-in add-on on Fireflies' Pro+ tiers, not its core recording mode. Doculigent records your full screen and camera by default, on every tier.

Doculigent features

Cursor customization

Restyle the cursor and click highlights after recording, from a dedicated Cursor panel in the Timeline Editor.

AI summaries

Record your meeting, or drop in a video file, and Doculigent automatically generates a summary and notes — no prompting required.

Compare Doculigent to other tools

Doculigent vs Granola

Granola is a notes-first app with no bot joining the call — it captures live audio in the background while you type your own notes, then AI merges the two into polished notes after the meeting.

Doculigent vs Fireflies.ai

Fireflies.ai is an AI meeting assistant that joins calls (bot-based by default, with a bot-free desktop capture mode) to transcribe, summarize, and search conversations, with deep CRM/ATS integrations.