Earkeep
The MeetGeek alternative that never waits to be started
Last updated: · Reviewed quarterly
MeetGeek is a cloud meeting-intelligence platform for teams: five ways to start a recording, summaries, analytics, one archive everybody can search. Earkeep is the other shape: one person, one device, always listening, transcribed locally, kept as plain files in a folder you picked.
14-day full trial, no account required.
- Always on, not per meeting
- Transcribed on your device, never uploaded
- €39 once, not $9.99 per seat per month
The short answer
MeetGeek is the more complete product, and on several axes plainly the better one: a bot that joins without you, speaker labels, mobile, Windows, a team archive everyone can search, and the most worked-out consent machinery in this market. What it never is, is always on, and what it captures is processed in its cloud and expires on a schedule your plan sets. Earkeep records the whole day on your own device, lets you decide afterwards which stretch was the meeting, and writes it into a file nothing expires.
Why people look for a MeetGeek alternative
Five ways to record, none of them always on
MeetGeek is not a bot-only tool: alongside the calendar bot there is a bot-free desktop app for macOS and Windows, an "invisible" Chrome recorder, phone apps that record in person, and file upload. None of them run by themselves. The bot needs a calendar event, and every bot-free path detects a meeting and then prompts you to confirm, so the conversation nobody booked is in none of them.
Earkeep is already running: mic and system audio from launch, no record button, and you draw the meeting on the timeline afterwards. The trade is disclosure, where MeetGeek is ahead and says so, "MeetGeek does not support incognito recording or surveillance": its bot is admitted by the host, named in the participant list, and posts a notice into the chat. Earkeep announces itself to nobody. It gives you controls instead, a pause that releases the microphone, a never-record toggle on any calendar meeting, a purge afterwards, and says plainly that consent is yours to get.
Recorded on your device, processed on theirs
The desktop app is genuinely bot-free and records locally, and then it uploads: MeetGeek's own quickstart tells you not to delete the local file until the upload is confirmed. Transcription and storage are cloud at every tier, with no on-device option at any price. What you get instead is EU or US residency, SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA: stronger paperwork than ours.
Earkeep uploads nothing: Whisper or Parakeet run on your own machine, and the audio is transcribed in memory, never written to disk. Cloud processing is not automatically better processing, either. Accuracy is MeetGeek's most documented complaint, and an AppSumo reviewer puts it bluntly, "Transcription is not great and still doesn't capture the meeting accurately... I don't even look anymore about who said what." Not a fight we can claim, though: they attempt speaker labels, and Earkeep has none.
A record that outlives the subscription
MeetGeek's plans meter how long your own words survive. On the free tier the audio is gone after a month and the transcript after three; on Pro, $9.99 a seat billed annually, six months and a year. Transcripts become permanent only from Business at $17.
What they produce in that window is well liked, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest: a Trustpilot reviewer in February 2026 says the "summaries focus strictly on the important stuff, skipping all small talk". The question is where they live afterwards, since a rented archive forgets.
Earkeep writes one .jsonl file per day into a folder you chose, meetings marked inline. grep works on it, it outlives the app, and no pricing page decides when a four-year-old conversation stops being readable. Ten agents read it in-app over ACP, and a read-only MCP server hands spans to Claude Desktop or Cursor. MeetGeek has an MCP server too, six tools against its cloud, more than our two; the difference is whose disk the meetings sit on.
Side by side
| Capability | Earkeep | MeetGeek |
|---|---|---|
| Always-on capture | From launch, no start button | Every path is per meeting |
| Bot-free capture | No bot exists | Desktop, Chrome and phone apps, each waiting on you |
| Records a meeting you can't attend | Only what your device hears | The bot joins from your calendar |
| Audio processed on your device | In memory, never on disk | Cloud at every tier, desktop included |
| Decide what was a meeting afterwards | Spans drawn on the day | You start a recording first |
| AI summary when it ends | No, but an agent you connect writes them from the transcript | Unlimited, 30+ templates |
| Files notes into Notion, Slack or a CRM | No, but your agent files them where your team reads | 33 integrations, plus Zapier and Make |
| Labels who said what | No diarisation | On every tier, including free |
| Keeps a recording you can replay | Audio is never kept | Audio always, HD video on Business |
| Transcribes your language | 99 with Whisper, auto-detected | 100+, auto-detected |
| A record that never expires | Plain files in your own folder | 3 months free, a year on Pro, unlimited at $17 |
| Team-wide searchable archive | One person, one device | Shared spaces and auto-share, but only from Business |
| Asks participants for consent | Announces itself to nobody | Tracked approval, before recording |
| Free tier that doesn't expire | 14 days free, then €39 once | 3 hours a month, free forever |
| Windows and mobile apps | macOS 13+ only | Windows desktop, iOS and Android |
| Your own agents can read it | Ten ACP agents plus MCP, on local files | Six MCP tools, but over its own cloud |
| Pricing | €39 one time, one device | Free; Pro $9.99/user/mo annually ($15.99 monthly); Business $17; Enterprise on request |
| Platform | macOS 13+ | Web, macOS and Windows, iOS, Android, Chrome |
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 day run. Earkeep listens as soon as it is open, so a first day of real meetings, booked and unbooked, is captured before you configure anything. There is no import tool: your MeetGeek recordings, summaries and action items stay in MeetGeek.
- Point it at the same calendar. Drag a span across the timeline where a meeting was, or connect the calendar MeetGeek's bot was reading and let every event title its own span. Mark anything you would rather keep off the record as never-record, and capture stops for its length.
- Get your old transcripts out first. This is the step with a deadline: below Business, MeetGeek's transcripts expire (three months free, a year on Pro) and downloads start at Pro, so pull anything worth keeping while the subscription is live. Then stop paying per seat: Earkeep is €39 once, after a 14-day trial that needs no email and no account.
Which one fits you
Choose Earkeep if
You want the whole day kept without deciding in advance, and the record to be your own file.
- Much of your week was never a calendar event: at-desk questions, huddles, a call that ran on
- Confidential conversations mean the audio must not leave the device
- You want a record nothing expires: plain
.jsonl, greppable in ten years - You are one person, not a seat on a plan built around a shared space
- Your own agents should read your meetings off your own disk
Choose MeetGeek if
MeetGeek does several things Earkeep has no answer to, and the honest advice is to buy theirs for those.
- You need other people told, in the meeting: their bot is admitted by the host, named in the participant list, posts a notice into the chat, and on Business waits for invitees to accept. Earkeep has no equivalent
- Your team needs one archive: shared spaces, comments, auto-share, org-wide search. Earkeep has none of it
- A meeting must be recorded when you cannot be there: their bot joins without you
- You need who said what, a phone, or Windows: speaker recognition on every tier, phone apps, a Windows build. Earkeep has none
- You want the output routed for you: 33 integrations, CRM writes, talk-time and sentiment analytics. An Earkeep agent files notes only once you wire it up
The buyer split is cleaner than the feature lists suggest. MeetGeek sells seats to a team so meeting output lands in a CRM without anyone typing; Earkeep sells one licence to one person who wants their own record and no cloud account: see Earkeep for product managers and Earkeep for UX researchers. One question worth putting to them first: MeetGeek's disclosure story is built around the bot, and we found no documentation of how its desktop app or Chrome recorder tells anyone recording has started.
Other tools people weigh this against
Anyone shopping for a MeetGeek alternative has a few other tabs open. Each gets the same treatment as this page: Otter.ai, Fireflies.ai, Fathom, tl;dv, Read AI and Granola, or all sixteen side by side.
Frequently asked questions
Is Earkeep a good MeetGeek alternative?
It is, if you want one person's own record of everything rather than a team platform: Earkeep never waits to be started, catches the unbooked conversations MeetGeek misses, transcribes on your device, and keeps files nothing expires. What it does not do is send a bot in your place, label who said what, write summaries, keep replayable audio, or give a team an archive.
Does MeetGeek record without a bot?
Yes, and it is the most common misunderstanding about it. Besides the calendar bot there is a desktop app for macOS and Windows, an invisible Chrome recorder, phone apps that record in person, and file upload. Two things stay true of all of them: each is per meeting and waits on a human, and the audio is still processed in MeetGeek's cloud.
How long does MeetGeek keep my transcripts?
It depends on the plan. Free keeps audio one month and transcripts three; Pro, $9.99 a seat billed annually, six months and a year. Transcripts go unlimited on Business at $17, where video still expires at twelve months. Earkeep writes a .jsonl file into a folder you picked, and nothing expires it.
Does Earkeep tell people it is recording, the way MeetGeek does?
No, and MeetGeek is genuinely ahead here: its bot is admitted by the host, named in the participant list, posts a message in the chat, emails participants beforehand, and on Business holds recording until invitees accept. Earkeep announces itself to nobody and never claims to make a recording lawful. What it gives you is controls: a pause that releases the microphone so the recording indicator goes dark, a never-record toggle on any calendar meeting, and a purge afterwards. Telling people is yours to do, and this page is our attempt to help.
Is MeetGeek's free tier enough to skip Earkeep entirely?
For some people, yes: 3 hours of transcription a month, unlimited summaries, speaker labels, bot and bot-free recording, plus API and MCP access. The limits are elsewhere: no integrations, no exports, and audio gone after a month, transcripts after three. Earkeep caps no hours and expires nothing, but its free run is 14 days.
Keep the whole day, on your own device
14-day full trial, no account required.