MEMORY NOTCH BLOG

Granola AI alternatives, by why you’d switch

Granola sends your audio to a transcription provider, then deletes it. Five Granola alternatives, sorted by your reason to leave. Prices checked Sept 28.

Published September 28, 2026 · The Memory Notch team

The short answer

The right Granola alternative depends on why you want to leave. A new option arrived on September 23, 2026: Goodmeet, from the company behind Goodnotes, a free beta that transcribes on your Mac.

If you want summaries without a cloud transcription service, pick Goodmeet. For team features, Otter or Fireflies. For a free plan with unlimited recordings, Fathom. To keep the audio as files on your own computer, Memory Notch.

What Granola does: It writes enhanced meeting notes from your jottings and the call audio, with no bot in the meeting.
Where its audio goes: It goes to a transcription provider, and then it’s deleted. Only text is kept.
What’s new: Goodmeet launched on September 23, 2026, free during its beta. Superhuman bought Fathom on September 14.
Prices: We checked them on September 28, 2026, on each vendor’s own pricing page.

What does Granola do well?

Granola is a notepad first. You type rough notes during a call, and afterwards it merges them with the transcript into what it calls enhanced notes. Its site calls it “the AI notepad for people in back-to-back meetings” and says it “uses your computer audio, so doesn’t invite a bot”. That notepad is the part most people would miss if they left.

Granola also goes well beyond one laptop:

Platforms: desktop apps for Mac and Windows, and phone apps for iPhone and Android.
Languages: a September 2 update lists more than 30 languages for the desktop app.
Chat and templates: you can ask questions about one meeting or many, and shape notes with templates.
Price: a free plan keeps 30 days of meeting history. The Business plan costs $14 per user per month.

If you like all of that and only want to know where your audio goes, read the next section first. You may not need to switch.

Where does Granola send your audio?

Granola records on your computer and sends the audio to a transcription service, but it doesn’t keep a recording. Its help centre says it “passes audio directly from your microphone and system audio to our transcription provider”. The same page says it “does not record or save audio or video at any point during the call”.

So two things are true at once. No bot joins, and no audio file is kept. But your words still travel to an outside service to be transcribed, and the notes and transcript live in Granola’s cloud. Whether that matters depends on your reason for looking.

Granola AI alternatives at a glance

The table puts Granola beside five alternatives: where the audio goes, and what you pay. Prices are for monthly billing, with annual billing in brackets where the vendor shows it.

Checked September 28, 2026, on each vendor’s own pricing page.

App	Where transcription runs	Audio kept?	Bot in the meeting?	Written summaries	Price
Granola	Its transcription provider	No, deleted after transcription	No	Yes	Free (30-day history); Business $14/user/mo
Otter.ai	Cloud service	Yes, recordings play back	Optional: bot or desktop app	Yes	Free (300 min/mo); Pro $16.99/user/mo ($8.33 annual)
Fireflies.ai	Cloud service	Yes, stored with limits by plan	Optional: bot or bot-free	Yes	Free; Pro $18/seat/mo ($10 annual)
Fathom	Cloud service	Yes, unlimited recordings	Optional: bot or bot-free beta on Mac	Yes	Free; Premium $20/mo ($16 annual)
Goodmeet	On your Mac	No, transcript only	No	Yes, in a sealed cloud environment	Free during beta
Memory Notch	On your Mac	Yes, as `.m4a` files on your Mac	No	No	US$79 once; free 5-minute trial per recording

Which Granola alternative fits your reason for leaving?

Match the tool to the thing that bothers you. Each reason below points somewhere different.

You don’t want your audio going to a transcription service. Goodmeet and Memory Notch both transcribe on the computer itself. Goodmeet still sends the transcript to a sealed cloud environment when you ask for a summary. Memory Notch has no summary step, so the recording and transcript stay put. Our guide to local AI note takers for Mac covers more of these apps.

You want to keep the recording. Granola and Goodmeet both keep text only. To replay a quote or check a transcript against the tape, you need a tool that stores the audio. Ours keeps it on your computer. Otter, Fireflies and Fathom keep it in their cloud.

You share notes with a team. The three cloud services are built for this, with shared search and integrations. Paid plans add CRM sync. Fathom changed hands this month: on September 14, 2026, Superhuman said it had bought Fathom and would bring its notes into its own email and calendar apps. The announcement doesn’t mention pricing.

You want it free. Fathom’s free plan includes unlimited recordings. Otter’s free plan gives 300 minutes a month, and each conversation stops at 30 minutes. Goodmeet costs nothing during its beta and hasn’t said what comes after.

You’re tired of subscriptions. Memory Notch costs $79 once. We compare one-time options in AI note takers without a subscription.

Your meetings aren’t all in English. Stay close to Granola here. Fireflies’ pricing page lists more than 100 languages. Goodmeet’s launch coverage lists English only.

Goodmeet vs Granola: what’s different?

Goodmeet does Granola’s job with transcription moved onto your computer. Both are bot-free and listen through the computer’s own audio. Both keep text rather than audio, and both lead with written summaries. The difference is where the transcription happens, and how long each has been around.

	Granola	Goodmeet
Transcription	Its transcription provider	On the Mac
Summaries	Granola’s cloud	A confidential-computing environment the company says nobody, including itself, can read
Audio kept	No	No
Platforms	Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android	Macs with Apple silicon only
Languages	30+ on desktop	English at launch
Price	Free with 30-day history; $14/user/mo for Business	Free during beta
Track record	Shipping product with an Enterprise plan	Beta launched September 23, 2026

Goodmeet fits if you want Granola’s shape without the outside transcription service, and you meet in English. It’s also a beta, so expect changes. Granola still makes more sense if you rely on its notepad, other languages, or its Windows and phone apps. Its maker also lists security certifications on its site. We haven’t compared the two apps’ summaries side by side.

Is Memory Notch a Granola replacement?

Only if you want the recording and the transcript, and not the write-up. Memory Notch is our Mac app. It records your microphone and your computer’s audio from the notch at the top of the screen. It transcribes live, labels speakers, and saves each meeting as plain files in ~/memory: a note, a text transcript and an .m4a recording. It doesn’t join the call.

Live transcription uses NVIDIA’s Nemotron multilingual streaming model, and speaker labels use NVIDIA’s Nemotron 3 Diarization. Both run on the computer through FluidAudio, an open-source toolkit bundled in the app. An Enhanced transcript option re-transcribes a saved recording more carefully.

Here’s what it doesn’t do:

No automatic summaries. For Granola-style notes, open the files in an AI coding tool or paste the transcript into a chat app.
Speakers are numbered, not named.
Search covers titles and metadata, not every word of every transcript.
Overlapping voices can be hard to separate.
Recording the other side of a call needs macOS Screen Recording permission.
It needs a newer Mac: Apple silicon, on macOS 26 or later.

Our AI tools page has the steps for summaries. That route sends the text to whichever AI you choose.

The app makes three network requests, and none carries a recording. It fetches a signed list of revoked licences, checks for updates daily (you can turn that off), and downloads an update when you choose one. Our privacy policy lists all three.

A licence costs $79 once and covers up to five of your Macs, with a year of updates. Versions released in that year keep working without limits, and you have 30 days to ask for a refund. The free trial records up to five minutes at a time, with no account and no expiry. For the detailed side-by-side, see our pages on Granola, Otter, Fireflies and Fathom.

Do you still need consent with a bot-free note taker?

Yes. With no bot in the call, the other people may not know you’re recording, and local processing doesn’t replace their consent. Otter’s own desktop page tells users to get any required consent before recording without a bot. Granola’s guide says to let the other participants know.

For the wider picture, read our guide to bot-free AI note takers.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free Granola alternative?

Yes. Fathom’s free plan includes unlimited recordings and lets you choose bot or bot-free capture. Otter’s free plan gives 300 transcription minutes a month, up to 30 minutes per conversation. Goodmeet is free while in beta on Apple silicon Macs. Granola itself has a free plan with 30 days of meeting history. Prices checked September 28, 2026.

Is there a Granola alternative that transcribes on the Mac?

Yes. Goodmeet transcribes on the Mac and sends only the transcript to a confidential-computing environment when you ask for a summary. Memory Notch transcribes and labels speakers on the Mac and has no summary step, so the recording and transcript stay as files in ~/memory. Both need an Apple silicon Mac.

Does Granola keep my meeting audio?

No. Granola’s help centre says it passes audio from your microphone and system audio to its transcription provider, and doesn’t save audio or video at any point. What remains is the text transcript and your enhanced notes, stored in Granola’s service. If you need the recording itself, use a tool that keeps it.

Goodmeet vs Granola: which should I use?

Use Goodmeet if you meet in English, have an Apple silicon Mac, and want transcription kept on the computer; it launched as a free beta on September 23, 2026. Use Granola if you need more than 30 languages, Windows or phone apps, or a product with a paid Enterprise plan today.

Does Memory Notch write meeting summaries like Granola?

No. Memory Notch records, transcribes and labels speakers on your Mac, and saves plain files. You can open the transcript in Claude Code, Codex or Cursor, or paste it into a chat app, which sends that text to the AI you choose. The one-time licence is $79.

Sources

Download Memory Notch · More from the blog