Earkeep
The Fireflies.ai alternative that stays on your device
Last updated: · Reviewed quarterly
Fireflies.ai is built for sales teams: a bot joins the call, and the transcript lands in Salesforce or HubSpot, per user, per month. Earkeep is the opposite shape. It runs quietly on your own device, hears whatever your computer hears, and never adds a participant the room can see.
14-day full trial, no account required.
- No bot joins your call
- Transcribed on your device, never uploaded
- €39 once, not $18-29 per seat
The short answer
If your job is running sales calls that must land in a CRM, Fireflies solves a problem Earkeep doesn't try to solve, and it has the most generous free tier in this market plus 40-plus integrations. If your job is knowledge work full of meetings you want captured without thinking about it, and kept as your own files, Earkeep is built for exactly that.
Why people look for a Fireflies.ai alternative
Nothing to invite, nothing to start
Fireflies has to be added to a call on a supported platform before that call starts, and only what the bot captures gets transcribed. Miss adding it and there is no record, and it cannot capture in-person conversations or anything happening outside a joined video call, by design.
It is also a visible third-party participant, which carries a social cost its users manage. Reddit users describe the etiquette: "letting people know that you will be kicking note-taking bots… most people will remember to turn off the bots before joining the meeting as a matter of courtesy."
Earkeep runs continuously while your device is on, capturing mic and system audio in the background. There is no record button and no bot avatar, so there is nothing for other participants to notice, object to, or ask you to remove. You define a meeting after it happened by selecting the span on the timeline, or connect a calendar (Google, Apple, Outlook, or any ICS URL) so spans start and end automatically.
Transcribed on your device, not in a cloud
This is the core architectural difference. Fireflies transcribes and stores everything in its cloud: audio, transcripts, summaries, and analytics all live on Fireflies' infrastructure, governed by its own retention and privacy policy. Reviewers flag cloud-only processing as a privacy concern in regulated industries, a structural property the generous free tier mitigates rather than removes.
Earkeep processes audio only in memory, transcribes it on-device with Whisper or Parakeet models, hardware-accelerated on Apple Silicon, and never writes raw audio to disk or sends it to any server or API. There's no account required to use the app, and what's left after transcription is plain text files on your own disk, not a cloud database.
Agents that read the real file, not a copy in someone's cloud
Fireflies launched an MCP server in 2026 that lets external tools retrieve, search, filter, and summarize Fireflies' cloud meeting data. It's worth naming directly: this is real competition on a differentiator Earkeep has had from the start.
The difference is what the MCP server sits on top of. Fireflies' MCP server reaches into a cloud transcript store; Earkeep's MCP server and in-app ACP agents reach into transcripts that were never uploaded anywhere, on the same machine the agent is running on.
Side by side
| Capability | Earkeep | Fireflies.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Always-on capture | Continuous, in the background | Only meetings its bot joins |
| Bot-free | No visible participant | Joins Zoom, Teams, Meet, Webex and more |
| Records a meeting you can't attend | Only what your device hears | The bot goes without you |
| Audio processed on your device | Never leaves your own disk | Fully cloud-processed |
| Captures in-person meetings | Any audio on the device | Only the bot's feed of the call |
| Retroactive spans | Or marked by your calendar | Structured per call, live |
| AI summary when it ends | No, but an agent you connect writes them from the transcript | Auto-generated, with custom templates |
| Labels who said what | Not yet | Speaker identification, and search by speaker |
| Your own agents can read it | ACP agents plus MCP, over local files | MCP server, but over Fireflies' cloud store |
| Logs meetings to your CRM | No, but your agent reaches them through its own connections | Salesforce and HubSpot, automatically |
| Share with people who weren't there | No, but your agent files the notes where your team already reads | Soundbites: shareable clips of the moment |
| Mobile app | Desktop only | iOS and Android |
| Free tier that doesn't expire | 14 days free, then €39 once | Widely rated the most generous of the bots |
| One-time purchase | €39, one device | Per user, per month |
| Pricing | €39 once, one device, no subscription | Free tier; Pro $18/user/mo ($10 annually); Business $29/user/mo ($19 annually); Enterprise from $39+ |
| Platform | macOS 13+ | Web, iOS, Android |
Built inNo, but an agent you connect canPartlyNot available
What each one costs by year five
Switching takes an afternoon
- Install it, then let a normal day happen. Earkeep starts listening as soon as it is running, so a first day of real meetings is captured before you have configured anything. There is no import tool: Earkeep cannot migrate your Fireflies transcripts, and they stay where they are.
- Mark yesterday, or connect a calendar. Drag a span across the timeline where a meeting was, or point Earkeep at Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook or any ICS URL and let every event title its own span.
- Drop the seats you stop using. The trial runs 14 days with full functionality, no email and no account, long enough to compare two weeks of real meetings. Keep Fireflies for the calls that have to reach a CRM if you need it; what Earkeep captured is already plain files on your own disk, so there is nothing to export if you change your mind.
Which one fits you
Choose Earkeep if
You want everything captured without a bot in the room, and the record to be yours.
- Plenty of what matters is said in person, at a desk, or outside a joined video call
- Confidential or client conversations mean the audio must not leave your device
- You never want to remember to invite anything before a call starts
- You'd rather pay €39 once than carry a per-seat bill that grows with headcount and quietly wastes licences on infrequent users
- Your own agents should read the transcript directly, on the machine it was written on
Choose Fireflies.ai if
Fireflies is built for a job Earkeep does not try to do, and it's worth saying so plainly.
- Deep CRM auto-logging. Back-to-back sales calls auto-logged into Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive or Zoho with a summary and next steps is Fireflies' core strength, and not something Earkeep does.
- Cross-platform video calls with a genuinely generous free tier. Unlimited transcription with 800 minutes of storage is a strong no-cost option if you mostly meet on Zoom, Teams or Meet and don't mind a bot in the room.
- Conversation analytics for coaching teams. Talk-to-listen ratio, monologue detection, filler-word tracking and sentiment scoring across a sales team's calls are Fireflies features Earkeep does not have.
- Team collaboration on shared calls. Comments, reactions, mentions and shareable highlights are built for a shared cloud workspace, a different product shape than a single-device, local-first app.
- A record of calls you can't attend. The bot goes without you, and it runs on the web plus iOS and Android rather than one desktop.
Fireflies fits a sales team lead or revenue-ops role who lives in a CRM, runs several customer calls a day on supported video platforms, and needs each one logged and analyzed automatically; where it serves people less well is external or privacy-sensitive client calls, where users actively kick bots from meetings, in-person meetings, and teams on a tight budget where per-user pricing adds up. Earkeep fits the "never miss anything" knowledge worker with 8-15 meetings a week across online and in-person settings, who wants everything captured without a bot in the room and that record available to their own agents rather than a vendor's. That is most of a product org: product managers, product owners, project managers, UX researchers and engineering leads all have a version of the same week.
Other tools people weigh this against
Anyone shopping for a Fireflies.ai alternative usually has a few other tabs open. Each of these gets the same treatment as this page: Granola, Otter.ai, Fathom, tl;dv, Jamie, MacWhisper, Limitless and Plaud, or all nine side by side.
Frequently asked questions
Is Earkeep a good Fireflies.ai alternative?
It is, if what you want from Fireflies is the record rather than the bot and the CRM pipeline. Earkeep captures every meeting on your device without joining anything, including the in-person ones Fireflies cannot reach, and keeps the transcript as plain files you own. What it does not do is log calls to Salesforce or HubSpot, send a bot to a meeting you skip, label who said what, or run on a phone.
Does Fireflies work without a bot joining the call?
No. Fireflies records by joining supported video platforms as a visible bot participant. It cannot capture a call it hasn't been added to, and it doesn't capture in-person conversations.
Is Fireflies' free plan actually usable?
It offers unlimited transcription with 800 minutes of storage and 3 public channels, the most generous free tier among the cloud tools here. Paid plans start at $18/user/month ($10 billed annually) once you need more storage, CRM sync, or team features.
Does Fireflies' MCP server change the local-first argument?
It adds MCP access to Fireflies' cloud transcript store, so external tools can query meeting data that already lives on Fireflies' servers. Earkeep's MCP server, and its in-app ACP agents, work against transcripts that were transcribed on-device and never left your disk.
Can I use Earkeep for sales calls with CRM logging?
Earkeep doesn't have CRM integrations. If auto-logging calls into Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, or Zoho is the primary job, Fireflies is built for that specifically.
Is Earkeep really a one-time purchase?
Yes: €39 once, one device, no subscription. It includes all updates to Earkeep 1.x, and if a future paid major upgrade ever ships, the version you bought keeps working. There's a 14-day free trial, full functionality, no email or account, and a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Try the difference yourself
14-day full trial, no account required.