Best Granola AI Alternatives in 2026 (Including Free Options)

Granola AI is great right up until you actually have to work with other human beings. 

Solo Mac users and founders love it because the interface is beautiful and it makes you feel like you have your life completely together.

But things take a U-turn the moment you try to share insights with the rest of your team. Try sending a note to a teammate, syncing a call to HubSpot, or opening it on an Android phone, and suddenly Granola starts acting like an office printer from 2004.

The good news is that other platforms are built to handle your CRM data entry and sync seamlessly across devices. We tested the seven best Granola AI alternatives and ranked them by what they do best.

What is Granola AI? 

Granola AI is a meeting notes app for Mac and Windows that records your call audio without a bot joining the call. Using a simple on-screen notepad, it lets you jot down key points as the conversation runs. Once the meeting ends, it combines your notes with the full transcript to create a summary based on your most important takeaways.

How does Granola AI work?

Granola AI records your meetings directly from your device without sending a bot into the call. Setting it up takes less than five minutes:

1. Connect your Google Workspace or Microsoft account to sync your calendar
2. Let Granola capture your microphone and system audio as the meeting runs
3. Type rough notes or bullets into the blank canvas scratchpad for context later
4. Wait for Granola to generate a summary by merging your notes with the full transcript
5. Use the built-in chat to pull follow-up emails or specific details from your meeting history

What Are the Limitations of Granola AI?

Granola AI is designed as a personal note-taking tool rather than a company-wide system. These are its main limitations:

• No audio playback: The app deletes your meeting audio immediately after transcription. You cannot go back and listen to direct quotes.
• No native free integrations: Native automated syncing with apps like HubSpot, Notion, and Slack requires upgrading to the paid Business plan. Exporting notes on the basic tier requires a manual copy-paste.
• No Android support: It lacks an Android application. The software runs exclusively on Mac, Windows, and iOS, leaving Android users without a supported app.
• Limited free history: The free Basic tier shows only a limited window of past meetings. Older notes are stored but not visible in the app.
• Poor speaker identification: The software struggles with speaker identification in larger meetings with multiple participants. It cannot always accurately name individual voices and often defaults to generic labels.
• No automated task pushes: It lacks a built-in function to automatically push tasks to external project management tools like Monday.com or Asana. You must manually extract and move action items yourself.
• Less precise data for downstream AI: Granola generates a polished summary rather than a full word-for-word meeting transcription, meaning the notes can lack the granular detail needed by external AI analysis tools.
• No company-wide training opt-out: The standard Business tier does not offer an organization-wide opt-out for model training. To prevent internal conversations from being used for model improvements, you have to upgrade to the Enterprise plan.

Why People Look for Granola AI Alternatives

Any Granola app review will tell you that Granola is great at keeping your personal workspace clean and distraction-free. But the second you hire an employee or open a CRM, it forces you to manually copy and paste your data across different apps just to keep your business running.

This endless copy-paste trap is the main reason growing teams move on. Other reasons include:

• Zero audio verification. Granola discards the raw recording data entirely. If the AI misinterprets a complex technical detail or a client quote, you are completely stuck. There is no master tape to play back, forcing you to trust the summary blindly.
• Manual-only activation. Because there is no autonomous recording bot, the app cannot jump into a Zoom link on your behalf if you are double-booked or running late.
• Isolated workflows. No native connections to HubSpot, Salesforce, or Slack means your team is stuck doing manual data entry to log a basic meeting summary or assign action items to your team.
• Fragmented team knowledge. Insights stay trapped on individual devices. If a teammate goes on vacation, their accumulated call history goes completely dark.

The Best Alternatives to Granola AI [2026]

The market for Granola AI alternatives has grown fast in 2026. Whether you need CRM sync, cross-platform recording, or a proper team workspace, there is a tool built for it. Here are the seven best options we tested, ranked by use case.

1. Fireflies: Best for Cross-Platform Teams and CRM Integration

Fireflies is a meeting platform that captures, transcribes, and routes notes directly to your CRM and team tools.

It is different from other tools that force you into a single recording mode. You can send an automated recording bot to join scheduled Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams calls on your behalf when you are double-booked or running late. For sensitive conversations, you can bypass the bot entirely and use the lightweight Desktop App on Mac or Windows to capture audio locally instead.

Unlike Granola, Fireflies stores your raw audio and video, so you can click any sentence in the transcript to hear exactly what a client said. For a deeper breakdown of how the two tools stack up, see our full Granola vs Fireflies comparison.

Fireflies also makes sure conversation data does not stay locked to one device once a call ends. It offers over 100 native integrations that connect directly to HubSpot, Salesforce, and Slack, instantly filling out your client files and sending updates to your team tools automatically.

To make that data useful, the platform provides ready-made AI Skills that take care of your post-call chores automatically. This removes the need to write your own custom prompts, allowing teams to instantly flag customer objections, monitor how much reps are talking versus listening, or get a clean digest of morning calls sent straight to their inbox.

After the meeting, AskFred lets you ask direct questions about past calls, draft follow-up emails, or generate custom content from your transcripts.

The platform supports over 100 languages. 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. Teams on Enterprise can also keep everything secure with HIPAA-compliant protections.

What a Fireflies Post-Meeting Summary Looks Like:

• Quick Summary: A clean, three-sentence overview of the entire conversation.
• Action Items: A bulleted list of tasks assigned to specific people with checkboxes.
• Smart Insights: Dedicated blocks that flag pricing discussions, deadlines, or competitor mentions.
• Searchable Transcript: A full text record linked to the exact audio and video moments.

Best for: Small businesses and sales teams that need the best AI notetaker to handle your CRM data entry without manual work.

Free plan: Yes. It includes a free tier that lets you test out basic transcription and search features, but automated CRM syncing requires a paid upgrade.

2. tl;dv: Best for Free Recording and Basic Notes

tl;dv is a great option if you just want a reliable way to record your video calls without paying a monthly fee.

The software gives you unlimited free video recordings and text transcripts for Zoom and Google Meet calls. It is easy to use, handles basic screen recording well, and lets you highlight important moments while you talk. If your team uses Microsoft Teams, you need to pay for an upgrade to get full compatibility. The paid Pro plan starts at $18 per user per month on an annual commitment.

The trade-off is that you have to do more manual work. While tl;dv functions well as a basic note-taking tool, it does not run in the background on autopilot the way Fireflies does. You have to launch it manually for every single meeting and spend your afternoon copying notes over to your files.

tl;dv’s free tier caps you at ten full AI summaries total (a lifetime cap, not monthly). Once you hit that limit, the AI only summarizes the first ten minutes of each call. The free plan also does not connect directly to CRMs like HubSpot or Salesforce. 

Plus, any video you record on the free plan gets archived after three days. The text notes stay visible, but you have to manually unarchive the video if you want to watch the recording later.

Best for: Small business owners looking for free Granola alternatives who prioritize raw call recordings over automated CRM syncing.

Free plan: Unlimited recording on Zoom and Meet, but capped at ten AI summaries total (a lifetime limit) with videos archived after three days.

3. Fathom: Best for Simple, Clean Notes (Mac and Windows)

Fathom is the simplest bot-based alternative to Granola for Mac and Windows users who want clean notes without a learning curve.

The software uses a recording bot that joins your conversations across Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. It delivers a meeting summary in under thirty seconds right after your call ends.

It also keeps full video playback on the screen. This allows you to scrub directly to any moment in the recording from your notes. If you are trying to replace your Granola note taking app with a tool that works across different operating systems, Fathom is a reliable pick.

Where Fathom falls short is how it treats its smartest features. The software caps your account at just five advanced AI summaries per month. Once you pass that limit, Fathom stops building organized task lists or follow-up emails and leaves you with a basic block of plain text instead. Upgrading to a paid plan starts at $19 per seat monthly.

Best for: Small business owners who want a straightforward workspace on Mac or Windows and do not mind a strict five-call monthly limit on advanced notes.

Free plan: Yes. You get unlimited recording and transcripts across Zoom, Meet, and Teams. However, advanced AI formatting is capped at five calls a month and there is no mobile app for on-the-go use.

4. Otter.ai: Best for Live Transcription

Otter.ai is built for people who need to see text hit the screen in real time.

Instead of waiting for a call to wrap up, an automated assistant joins your Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams sessions to stream live captions as you speak. It also lets you snap pictures of presentation slides and match them to the transcript text automatically.

The biggest perk is the official smartphone app. Since platforms like Fathom and tl;dv focus entirely on desktop screens, Otter is much easier to use if you take in-person client meetings or run consulting sessions on the road. It fits well if you specifically want a Granola AI free alternative to capture live conversations on your phone.

The downside is the quality of the notes themselves. The post-meeting summaries are loose and unstructured compared to the organized templates tools like Fireflies produce. Readers might also get confused by the speaker tracking, as fast-paced group conversations can cause the app to mix up who said what.

The free plan also comes with a few limits that might make you look at other options. It caps your workspace at 300 total minutes per month and completely cuts off audio the exact second a meeting crosses the 30-minute mark. Moving your notes to a CRM automatically requires a paid tier. 

If you want to see how this app stacks up against similar options, browse our full list of Otter.ai alternatives.

Best for: Small business owners who need live captions and a reliable mobile app for on-the-go recording.

Free plan: Yes. It gives you 300 monthly minutes with a strict 30-minute cap per meeting, but skips CRM automation and HIPAA compliance.

5. MeetGeek: Best for Team Analytics

MeetGeek provides teams with a searchable record of every conversation alongside built-in call analytics.

It is built specifically for shared environments rather than individual note-taking. The software sends automated recording bots into platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams to build a central meeting library for your company. Instead of giving you a basic text summary, it tracks team-wide sentiment, monitors participant talk time, and extracts action items automatically.

Unlike Granola, MeetGeek is designed for managers who need to see patterns across all team calls. Managers can review client conversations, track sales rep performance, and query past meeting transcripts through a built-in AI chat. The platform even features AI voice agents that can join and run basic meetings on your behalf.

However, these extra features mean the dashboard has more moving parts than what you deal with using Granola. You will also have to get used to a visible bot joining your calls, as the software cannot capture local audio the way bot-free tools like Granola do.

Best for: Teams and managers who want deep conversation analytics and shared workspaces alongside automated notes.

Free plan: Yes. It offers 3 hours of monthly transcription, but your transcript data is deleted after 3 months.

6. Circleback: Best for Action Items

Circleback is for teams that just want to know who promised to do what after a call, without digging through pages of transcripts to find out.

The software sends a recording bot into your Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams calls. Once you hang up, it automatically creates a clean meeting summary and an organized list of action items that highlights who is responsible for each task and when it needs to be done.

Where it saves you time compared to Granola is the built-in automation. Granola leaves notes on your screen for you to organize manually, but Circleback sends that information to your other apps immediately. It can update a deal in Salesforce, create a task in Notion or Linear, or drop a quick recap into Slack the moment your call ends. 

You can also use its AI chat assistant to search through months of old calls whenever you need to double-check a project detail.

The main downside is that the tool only focuses on tasks. If you want a deep dashboard that tracks team analytics or charts showing who talked the most on a call, you will not find it here. It is also on the pricier side for small businesses because there is no permanent free plan.

Best for: Small businesses that struggle with post-meeting follow-ups and want their action items automatically synced to their project tools.

Free plan: No. You can test it with a 7-day free trial, but staying on the platform requires a paid plan starting at $20.83 per user per month when billed annually.

7. Read.ai: Best for Meeting Intelligence and Engagement Scoring

If you need to grade your sales pitches or evaluate client interest, Read.ai is the Granola alternative for you. The app converts video calls directly into a live dashboard of workplace numbers, deploying an automated recording bot across Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams to score the overall quality and focus of a session in real time.

You get a standard meeting summary right after you hang up, but most of the focus goes into its built-in engagement scoring. The dashboard tracks participant engagement levels, the general mood of the room, and speaker talk times. It even links your text notes, emails, and Slack messages into a shared network so you can ask its built-in AI assistant questions across all three channels at once.

However, the screen gets crowded quickly with all the engagement percentages, talk-time ratios, and filler-word metrics on display. This makes the interface feel cluttered if you just want to scan your text files. It takes time to learn where everything lives, so you will likely struggle if you are trying to find the distraction-free experience you get with Granola.

The price point is another factor for small businesses, as Read.ai costs more than most competing options. Essential team features like video playback or direct syncing to CRMs like HubSpot and Salesforce are entirely locked behind the highest-priced tiers.

Best for: Sales leaders and managers who need to grade pitch performance across multiple team accounts.

Free plan: Yes. The free tier lets you test the setup but caps you at five meeting summaries per month. 

Granola AI Alternatives Compared At a Glance

Each tool on this list solves a different problem. Use this table to compare the core features, platforms, and integrations side by side before making your final call.

Feature	Fireflies	Granola	tl;dv	Fathom	Otter.ai	MeetGeek	Circleback	Read.ai
Works on Windows	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Works on Zoom	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Works on Teams	✅	System Audio	Paid only	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Works on Google Meet	✅	System Audio	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Joins as a bot	✅	❌ (audio)	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Bot-free option	✅	✅	Workaround	❌	❌	❌	❌	✅ (Desktop)
CRM integrations	✅	Limited	Limited	✅ (free)	Limited	✅	✅	Limited
Slack integration	✅	❌	✅	❌	✅	✅	✅	✅
AI action items	✅	✅	✅	✅	Limited	✅	✅	✅
Free plan available	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅	❌ (7-day trial)	✅
100+ languages	✅	Limited	Limited	Limited	Limited	✅	✅	❌ (20+)
Team / admin controls	✅	Limited	Limited	❌	Limited	✅	✅	✅

How to Choose the Right Granola Alternative for Your Team

Choosing the right tool comes down to the single biggest headache in your post-meeting workflow. Use these quick scenarios to match a platform to the way your team actually works:

• If you need a tool that works across Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet. Fireflies is your best bet. It handles all three platforms under a single account and sends your notes directly to the tools your team already uses.
• If you want a free alternative that won't cut you off. Fathom gives you unlimited recordings and straightforward note-taking at no cost, without the integration limits you get with Granola.
• If you want your notes sent to your CRM automatically. Fireflies handles this for you by filling out your client files in Salesforce or HubSpot directly from the call transcript.
• If you need to see live captions right on the screen. Otter.ai types out your conversation in real time during the call, which is a feature that Granola and most other apps leave out.
• If you struggle to keep people accountable after a call. Circleback handles the follow-up work by organizing your action items and sending them to Salesforce, Notion, or Slack the moment your call ends.

Already narrowed it down to Fireflies vs Granola specifically? Read our full head-to-head breakdown: Fireflies vs Granola: Detailed Comparison

Frequently Asked Questions: Granola AI Alternatives

What is the best alternative to Granola AI?

Granola AI is a great tool for personal notes, but it falls short when you are trying to run a business. It does not automatically save call details into your CRM, it makes sharing notes with a team difficult, and it does not work across all platforms and devices your team uses. If those limitations are slowing down your staff, here are the top Granola AI alternatives to consider:

• Fireflies: Best overall for cross-platform teams, automatic CRM logging, and organizing company notes
• tl;dv: Best for free video recording and quickly cutting out short shareable clips
• Fathom: Best for individuals who just want simple, free AI meeting notes
• Otter.ai: Best for watching a live scrolling transcript type out during a call
• MeetGeek: Best for tracking team talk-time and viewing basic meeting analytics
• Circleback: Best for extracting clear action items so tasks do not get missed
• Read.ai: Best for reading team engagement trends and tracking performance data over time

Does Granola AI work on Windows?

Yes, Granola AI works on Windows. It launched as a Mac-only tool but has since released a native Windows desktop app alongside its macOS and iOS versions

Does Granola AI work on Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams?

Yes, Granola AI works on Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. It captures system audio directly from your device during any video call, so it does not matter which platform you use. No bot joins the meeting regardless of which conferencing tool you are in.

Is Granola AI free?

Yes, Granola has a free Basic plan with a limited meeting history. Older notes are stored but become inaccessible in the app rather than deleted. Paid plans start at $14 per user per month for unlimited history, advanced AI models, and team integrations. Granola does not offer annual billing as of this writing.

Is Granola AI safe to use?

Granola is generally considered safe from a technical standpoint. It does not store audio files, encrypts all transcripts and data in a US-based AWS environment, and has achieved SOC 2 Type 2 certification. It is also GDPR compliant and does not allow third-party services like OpenAI or Anthropic to train on your data.

That said, check your local recording consent laws and your company's IT policies before using it. In many regions and organizations, recording without notifying participants is not permitted.

Does Granola AI record audio?

Granola captures system audio from your computer in real time to generate a transcript, but does not store the audio file afterward. You cannot go back and listen to a recording of the meeting. Only the written transcript and your AI-generated notes are saved. It works at the operating system level on your Mac or Windows device, so no bot appears in your participant list.

Does Granola AI integrate with CRM tools like Salesforce or HubSpot?

Not natively. You can connect Granola to HubSpot via Zapier on the Business plan, but this requires manual setup and does not push data automatically after each call. If your workflow depends on CRM records updating without any manual work, Granola is not the right fit.

What is the best free alternative to Granola AI? 

The best free alternative depends on what you need. If you want unlimited transcription, AI summaries, and team features from day one, Fireflies has a free plan that works across Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams on any device. If you just need unlimited raw video recording with no meeting limits and a clean interface, Fathom is worth a look, though its free tier limits advanced AI insights to five meetings per month.

What is the difference between Granola AI and Fireflies?

Granola is a personal desktop notepad that captures audio locally without a bot joining the call. It works on Mac, Windows, and iOS, and while it has basic team folders, notes stay private by default. Fireflies is built for scale across your entire organization. It joins calls as a bot across Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams, syncs transcripts directly to your CRM, and gives your whole team access to a shared searchable archive. It also offers bot-free recording via its Desktop App for situations where a visible bot is not ideal.

From Isolated Notes to a Unified Workspace

Granola works well if you are a solo worker typing up personal notes on a Mac. That setup breaks down quickly once your business grows. The moment you start juggling multiple client accounts, switching between different video apps, or typing notes into a CRM, keeping up with it all becomes a full-time job.

The real risk is ending up with your notes in one app, your recordings in another, and your client history in a third. When that happens, finding anything useful takes longer than the meeting did.

If you only need to fix one narrow problem, a highly specialized app might be enough. Budget-conscious setups can use Fathom to get basic call recordings for free. Teams struggling with follow-up accountability can use Circleback to route automated task lists straight to their project boards.

Fireflies brings all of these into one place. It is one of the few options that keeps your workspace unified by pairing the private, bot-free desktop recording people like about Granola with the automatic CRM entry and shared team storage needed to scale a business.

Free plan available. No Mac required. Try Fireflies for free