Fireflies vs. Fathom: Which AI Meeting Assistant Wins in 2026?

Fireflies and Fathom both record, transcribe, and summarize your meetings, so on the surface they look like the same tool. The differences show up once you compare them feature by feature. As of 2026, Fathom is a focused meeting notetaker built around Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, while Fireflies is the #1 AI Assistant for meetings, email, Slack, CRM, and work, capturing meetings and also handling the work that follows across your day. 

We'll compare Fireflies vs. Fathom side by side on transcription, platform coverage, automation, integrations, security, and pricing, name a winner in each category, and close with a verdict for different team types.

Verdict at a Glance

The short answer to Fireflies vs. Fathom in 2026 is that Fireflies is the better choice when you need breadth, and Fathom is the better choice when you want a simple, focused notetaker. Fireflies is the #1 AI Assistant for meetings, email, Slack, CRM, and work, so it captures meetings across many platforms and automates the work that follows. Fathom records, transcribes, and summarizes calls on Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, and its free plan does that job well.

Fireflies also costs less at every comparable paid tier, while Fathom's free plan offers more storage for a single user. Use the quick guide below to match your situation to the right pick.

• Choose Fireflies if you need to capture meetings across several platforms (Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, and more), want 100+ language support, rely on deep CRM and workflow integrations, want automation through AI Skills, or need an AI Assistant that works across email, Slack, and CRM beyond meetings.
• Choose Fathom if you meet only on Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams, want a simple, lightweight notetaker, and do not need integrations beyond Salesforce, HubSpot, and Slack.
• Choose neither if you need a built in meeting platform. Fireflies and Fathom are AI layers that sit on top of Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams.

Fireflies vs. Fathom Side-by-Side Comparison Table

Transcription Accuracy and Language Support

Fireflies leads on transcription accuracy. Fireflies transcribes English at 99% accuracy and other languages at 95%. Fathom's transcripts are generally well reviewed by users, but with no published figure there is no official number to weigh against Fireflies. When accuracy matters for compliance, legal, or client records, a stated benchmark is worth more than an unstated one.

Language coverage is where the two tools diverge most. Fireflies covers 100+ languages with automatic language detection, and on Business and Enterprise plans its Multi-language Mode lets a single meeting shift between languages without anyone changing a setting. Fathom supports transcription in 38 languages as of 2026. For any team that meets in more than one language, that gap is the practical separator.

Recording Capabilities and Platform Coverage

Platform coverage is the second clear divide between the two tools. Fireflies captures meetings across a wider set of platforms and devices, while Fathom concentrates on the three most common video conferencing services.

Meeting platforms

Both tools record calls on the three major platforms: Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. The difference shows up beyond those three. Fireflies also records natively on Webex, GoToMeeting, Dialpad, and more, while Fathom's live recording stays limited to Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. For a team that runs calls on anything outside the big three, that native coverage is the separator.

Chrome extension

Fireflies offers a Chrome extension that records and transcribes calls running in the browser and includes AskFred for Web, so you can query past meetings without leaving the tab. Fathom also offers a Chrome extension, installed from its settings page, that can intercept a Google Meet link and join unscheduled calls. Fathom's main capture still runs through its Mac and Windows desktop app, and the extension does not add recording on unsupported systems like Linux.

Mobile app

Fireflies has a mobile app for both iOS and Android, so you can record, review, and search meetings from a phone. Fathom does not offer a mobile app as of 2026. Its help center lists mobile devices among the platforms it does not yet support and notes that capturing meetings in person is coming as part of a future iOS release.

File upload

Fireflies transcribes uploaded audio and video files, including MP3, MP4, M4A, and WAV, which helps with calls recorded elsewhere, interviews, or webinars. Fathom does not support uploaded files. Its help center states that it records and transcribes live meetings on Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams only.

AI Meeting Summary, AskFred, and AI Skills

Both tools summarize meetings well. The separation in this category is what happens to the summary next, and that is where Fireflies pulls ahead, with structured output, an assistant that searches across your tools, and an automation library Fathom has no direct answer to.

Structured AI meeting summary

After every meeting, Fireflies produces a structured summary rather than one block of text. Each summary carries an overview, an outline, keywords, action items, and detailed notes, so anyone can scan the parts that matter without replaying the call. The sections are not fixed. Using AI Skills, you can turn any section on or off, or rewrite its prompt, so a sales rep and a recruiter draw different outputs from the same transcript. Unlimited AI summaries come with every plan, including the free tier, while the deeper customization through AI Skills sits on the paid plans.

AskFred

AskFred is Fireflies’ AI assistant you query in plain language across your meetings. Ask what a client agreed to last quarter, what objections came up in a deal, or for a follow up email draft, and it answers from your actual conversation history with links back to the source. AskFred reaches past meetings too. It pulls context from connected email, Slack, and CRM data, so the answer reflects the whole thread of a relationship instead of a single call. That reach across sources is the main line between AskFred and Fathom's own Ask Fathom, which answers within a call and across your team's recorded meetings but stays inside the meeting data.

AI Skills

AI Skills is the feature with no direct equivalent in Fathom, and in 2026 it is the strongest reason teams pick Fireflies. The library holds 200+ built in automations that run after a meeting or conversation, across sales, recruiting, marketing, and operations. A sales team can use Autofill CRM to fill fields automatically and Deal Intelligence to surface deal health and risks. A recruiter can score candidates against a rubric. Anyone can generate follow up email drafts or pull action items grouped by owner. When a built in skill does not fit, you can build a custom one.

Fathom's summary capabilities

Fathom's summaries are solid. Right after a call it produces an automated summary, and on paid tiers it adds advanced summaries built from expert templates, AI action items, and AI follow up email drafts. Ask Fathom answers questions within a single call, and the account wide version searches across your team's recorded meetings. The format is largely fixed rather than editable section by section, and several of the richer summary features sit behind paid plans. For meeting recaps on Zoom, Google Meet, or Teams, Fathom does the core job well, which is what most individual users want from it.

2026 Products Where Fathom Doesn't Compete

What does Fathom not have that Fireflies does? As of 2026, the main gaps are:

• Live Assist for live answers during the call
• Voice Agents that run calls for you
• A Personal Assistant with Daily Digest, Task Manager, and Meeting Prep
• Email and Slack Connectors that work beyond meetings
• Deal Intelligence and Autofill CRM inside a 200+ skill library
• A mobile app, file upload, and real time transcription

Live Assist

Live Assist works during the call. As the conversation happens, it surfaces notes, suggestions, and answers, so you can stay present instead of typing. For sales teams, Sales Assist pulls answers from a knowledge base you set up, so a rep can field a pricing or product question in the moment. Fathom's desktop app shows a live summary as a call runs, but it does not offer live answers or playbook prompts of this kind.

Voice Agents

Voice Agents go a step further and run calls for you. Instead of joining a meeting you are already in, an agent places or takes the call itself, which suits screening interviews, discovery calls, and check in calls. Every call comes back with a full transcript and summary. Voice Agents support 30+ languages, let you set the tone, and can clone your voice so the call sounds like you. Fathom records meetings you attend. It does not run calls on your behalf.

Personal Assistant

Personal Assistant keeps you ready for the day without the manual prep. A Daily Digest pulls your meetings, emails, Slack activity, and tasks into one place. Task Manager tracks action items across meetings, email, and Slack automatically. Meeting Prep builds a short brief before each call, so you walk in with context. Fathom offers no comparable assistant layer outside the meeting itself.

Email Connector and Slack Connector

Fireflies works inside the channels where the rest of your work happens. It drafts email replies, triages your inbox, and detects tasks from messages. In Slack, it recaps threads and channels, answers questions, and sends meeting notes to the right place. These Connectors are also what let AskFred and AI Skills draw on email and Slack context, not only transcripts. Fathom can draft a follow up email after a meeting and post notes to Slack, but it does not triage your inbox or summarize your Slack threads.

Deal Intelligence and Autofill CRM

For sales teams, two AI Skills carry most of the weight. Autofill CRM writes meeting outcomes into your CRM fields automatically, which clears the manual update after every call. Deal Intelligence reads the conversation and surfaces deal health, next steps, and risk signals, so managers can see which deals need attention. Both run as part of the wider AI Skills library, available from the Pro plan up, and the same engine extends into recruiting, marketing, and operations. Fathom's Business plan does include a deal view and coaching metrics, but those sit on its top tier and work as a fixed set rather than part of a 200+ skill automation library.

Integrations and Workflow Automation

Fireflies offers 100+ native integrations as of 2026, while Fathom's directory lists 26, which means Fathom users more often route meeting data through an automation tool like Zapier to reach the apps they use. Here is how the two compare by category.

Privacy, Security, and Data Policy

For a user comparing two tools that record sensitive conversations, the data policy can decide the deal.

On training, Fireflies is direct. Fireflies.ai does not use customer data to train any AI models. Your personal data is never used to train AI models. Users own their data. Fireflies also states, "We impose a zero-data retention policy for meeting content with our AI vendors." Both commitments apply on every plan, including the free tier.

On certifications, Fireflies holds SOC 2 Type II and GDPR compliance across all plans, including Free. HIPAA compliance, backed by a BAA, and FERPA compliance come at the Enterprise level, alongside private storage and custom data retention. Meeting data is encrypted with AES 256 at rest and SSL/TLS in transit.

Fathom is also HIPAA, SOC 2 Type II, and GDPR compliant. It stores all data in the United States and is certified under the EU-U.S., UK, and Swiss Data Privacy Frameworks, with a DPA available for EU and UK customers. Its training policy reads differently, though. Fathom's AI vendors, Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google, are contractually barred from training their models on Fathom user data. Fathom itself, however, uses customer data with identifying details removed to improve its own proprietary AI models, and you have to opt out to stop it, individually in settings or across an entire organization on Business.

Pricing

Fathom is best known for its generous free tier. It gives one person unlimited recordings, transcription, and storage at no cost, which is more raw capture than the Fireflies free plan, which caps storage at 400 minutes per team. Where Fireflies free pulls ahead is feature depth, with unlimited transcription, unlimited AI summaries, AskFred, and 100+ languages. So for a solo user who just needs recordings, Fathom free holds more, and for anyone who wants the assistant features without paying, Fireflies free reaches further.

On paid plans, Fireflies vs. Fathom flips, and Fireflies is cheaper at every comparable tier. The breakdown below shows each plan level priced per seat each month, billed annually.

Both let you trial paid features first. Fathom offers self-serve trials with a 90 day money-back guarantee, and Fireflies offers a 7-day Business trial on top of a free plan that never expires.

Fireflies vs. Fathom: Which Should You Choose?

The decision usually comes down to how your team meets and what you need beyond the meeting itself. These five scenarios cover most buyers.

• If your sales team runs a CRM other than Salesforce or HubSpot, choose Fireflies. It connects natively to a wider set of CRMs, including Pipedrive and Zoho, and its Autofill CRM skill writes meeting outcomes into your fields automatically.
• If your team meets across several platforms like Zoom, Webex, and GoToMeeting, choose Fireflies. It records on all three and more, while Fathom captures only Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams.
• If you run global teams working in many languages, choose Fireflies. It transcribes 100+ languages with automatic detection, compared with 38 on Fathom.
• If you need an assistant that works beyond the meeting, choose Fireflies. Through its Connectors it triages your inbox, summarizes Slack threads, and autofills your CRM, and Voice Agents can run calls on your behalf, a range of work that sits outside what Fathom's meeting tool does.
• If you are an individual or small team meeting only on Zoom and you want a free, lightweight notetaker, Fathom's free tier is a reasonable choice. It records and transcribes without a paid plan, and for that narrow use it does the job well.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Fireflies better than Fathom?

Whether Fireflies is better than Fathom depends on your needs. Fireflies is the stronger pick for teams that want broad platform coverage, 100+ languages, 100+ integrations, and automation through AI Skills. Fathom is the better fit for an individual who wants a free, lightweight recorder for Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams.

What's the main difference between Fireflies and Fathom?

The main difference between Fireflies and Fathom is scope. Fathom is a focused meeting notetaker that records, transcribes, and summarizes calls on Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Fireflies does the same and then works across email, Slack, and CRM, with 200+ AI Skills and Voice Agents that run calls for you. One covers meetings, the other covers the wider workday.

Is Fathom or Fireflies cheaper?

Fireflies is cheaper than Fathom at every comparable paid tier. Billed annually, Fireflies Pro is $10 per seat each month and Business is $19, while Fathom Premium is $16, Team is $15, and Business is $25. Both offer a free plan, though Fathom's free tier includes more storage for a single user.

How accurate is Fireflies compared to Fathom?

Fireflies has the better documented transcription accuracy. Fireflies publishes 99% accuracy for English and 95% for other languages across 100+ languages. Fathom does not publish a specific accuracy figure on its official pages and supports 38 languages, so a direct percentage comparison is not possible from Fathom's own data.

Does Fathom work with Webex or GoToMeeting?

As of 2026, Fathom does not work with Webex or GoToMeeting. Fathom records live meetings on Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams only. Fireflies records on those three platforms and adds Webex, GoToMeeting, and more, so teams that meet across several services tend to need Fireflies for full coverage.

Does Fathom have a mobile app?

As of June 2026, Fathom does not have a mobile app. Its help center lists mobile devices among the platforms it does not yet support, with in person capture planned for a future iOS release. Fireflies offers apps for both iOS and Android, so you can record and review meetings from a phone.

Can both tools transcribe uploaded files?

No, only Fireflies can transcribe uploaded files. Fireflies accepts audio and video uploads, including MP3, MP4, M4A, and WAV, which helps with calls recorded elsewhere. Fathom records and transcribes live meetings on Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams only and does not support uploaded files.

Which one is easier to set up?

Both tools are quick to set up, with no technical work required. Fathom connects through a Google or Outlook calendar, which is required to use it, then captures calls on supported platforms. Fireflies offers more entry points, including its Meeting Bot, Desktop App, Chrome extension, and mobile apps, so teams can choose how meetings are captured. Setup takes minutes either way.

Conclusion

Fathom and Fireflies solve problems of different sizes. Fathom is a focused meeting notetaker, and for recording, transcribing, and summarizing calls on Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams, its free tier does that job well. Fireflies is the #1 AI Assistant for meetings, email, Slack, CRM, and work, so it covers the same meeting ground and then keeps going. For teams that need broader platform coverage, 100+ languages, 100+ integrations, automation through AI Skills, or an assistant that drafts email, summarizes Slack, and autofills your CRM, Fireflies is the clearer answer. If your needs reach past the meeting, start with Fireflies free and move up when you are ready.