Fireflies alternative: bot-free meeting notes
Fireflies.ai is one of the strongest team notetakers - its bot joins calls, transcribes, and feeds conversation analytics into a shared workspace. The main alternative is Nerpa: a recorder on your Mac that captures the call's audio directly, so no bot ever joins the meeting, raw audio stays in a local folder on your Mac, and notes are filed per person - a conversation history per client rather than a shared team feed. Comparison table below, with the trade-offs stated plainly.
When Fireflies is the right choice
Fireflies earns its popularity in specific situations:
- Sales teams. Conversation analytics - talk-time ratios, filler words, coaching soundbites - across a whole team is Fireflies' home turf.
- Shared workspaces. Everyone sees every recorded call, searchable across the org, with CRM sync (Salesforce, HubSpot) out of the box.
- Internal calls only. Where a "Fred" notetaker in the participant list bothers nobody.
If that's your use case, you don't need an alternative - the bot is the product.
Why people look elsewhere
The pattern behind most "Fireflies alternative" searches:
- The bot is visible - and sometimes unwelcome. On client calls, an extra participant changes how people talk; some enterprise security policies refuse external bots outright. The bot-free recording problem is exactly what a system-audio recorder solves.
- Everything lives in the vendor's cloud. Fireflies stores recordings under its retention rules. If the raw files matter, read what "keeping files local" actually means.
- Per-seat subscriptions. For solo operators or small practices, usage-based pricing (per minute of transcription) is often cheaper than seats × months.
Fireflies vs Nerpa, side by side
| Fireflies.ai | Nerpa | |
|---|---|---|
| How it captures | Bot joins the meeting as a participant | System audio from your Mac - nothing joins |
| Visible to other participants | Yes ("Fred" notetaker) | No - invisible to the meeting |
| Raw audio location | Vendor cloud | Local folder on your Mac |
| Speaker-aware transcript | Yes | Yes, with labels |
| Summary + action items | Yes | Yes |
| Conversation analytics / coaching | Yes - a core feature | No - not the focus |
| Team workspace | Yes, shared and searchable | Personal, organized by person |
| History per client | By meeting in a team feed | Built in - every conversation filed under the person |
| Pricing model | Free tier; per seat, monthly | Free tier; pay per minute of transcription |
The trade-off in one line: Fireflies wins on team analytics and shared workspaces; Nerpa wins on invisibility, local files, and per-client history. If you record mostly external client calls alone, the second column usually fits better; for a sales org, the first.
How Nerpa captures without a bot
A notetaker bot listens over the conference connection - which is why it must be admitted like a guest. Nerpa listens from your side of the table instead: the Mac app records what your speakers play (the other participants) plus your own microphone.
- Install the Mac app and sign in once. It sits in the background.
- When a Zoom, Meet, or Teams call starts, Nerpa notices the conference and offers to record. One click - no participant added, no recording notice from the platform.
- After the call: speaker-aware transcript, summary, decisions, and action items in a few minutes.
- The raw audio is a standard file in a folder on your Mac; the notes are filed under the person you spoke with.
That per-person filing quietly solves record-keeping too: your client call log builds itself - every conversation with each person, in order, with open items on top.
Fireflies-grade notes, minus the bot
Nerpa records the call from your Mac - invisible to other participants - and hands you a speaker-aware transcript with decisions and action items. Raw audio stays on your Mac.
Latest stable release. Requires macOS 12+
Switching from Fireflies
- In Fireflies: export your meetings (transcripts and audio from the meeting settings).
- Install Nerpa and record your next call - no bot to invite, nothing to configure per meeting.
- Keep exported transcripts in your notes tool if you need old history; Nerpa's per-person history accumulates going forward.
- Run both in parallel for a couple of weeks if you're on an annual plan; cancel Fireflies when the new history covers your active clients.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best alternative to Fireflies.ai?
It depends on the team size. For teams that want conversation analytics across a shared workspace, Fireflies is strong. If the bot joining your calls - or recordings living in a vendor's cloud - is the problem, a system-audio recorder like Nerpa captures meetings with no participant added, keeps raw audio in a local folder, and still delivers speaker-aware transcripts and action items.
Does Fireflies have to join the meeting as a bot?
In its default mode, yes - Fireflies' notetaker joins Zoom, Meet, or Teams as a visible participant, either invited per meeting or set to auto-join. A recorder that captures system audio from your own computer needs no meeting participant at all.
Is Fireflies good for solo consultants?
Fireflies' strengths - team workspaces, analytics, CRM sync - matter most for teams. Solo consultants usually need the call captured invisibly and notes filed per client; the visible bot and per-seat pricing are the two most common reasons solo users switch.
Can I keep my recordings local instead of in Fireflies' cloud?
Fireflies stores recordings and transcripts in its cloud under its retention rules. With Nerpa, every raw audio file stays in a plain folder on your Mac while transcription runs on your computer - the original recording is always a file you can open, copy, or back up.