Minutes vs Fireflies.ai: a team platform, or your own machine?
By the makers of Minutes · updated 18 September 2026 · full disclosure
| Minutes | Fireflies.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $24.99 one-time | Free, or $10 to $39 per seat per month |
| Where the audio goes | Nowhere. It stays on your Mac | Fireflies' cloud |
| Free tier | 7-day trial, then it is yours or it is not | Unlimited transcription, 400 minutes of storage per team |
| Storage limits | Your own disk | 400 minutes per team on the free plan |
| Works offline | Entirely | |
| Joins calls for you | You are in the meeting yourself | A bot joins |
| Where notes live | Plain Markdown in a folder you own | Fireflies' workspace |
| Integrations | It writes to Calendar and Reminders on your Mac | CRM, Slack, and many more |
| Platforms | macOS 26 or later, Apple Silicon | Web, Mac, Windows, mobile |
Why Minutes is better
- Nothing is uploaded. Recording, transcription and the summary run on your Mac.
- No seats, no meter. $24.99 once with Crest, and no storage cap: the audio is on your disk.
- The notes outlive the app. One Markdown file per meeting, in a folder you chose.
- Both sides, kept apart. Your microphone and your Mac's audio are separate channels.
Download Minutes freeGet all three apps, $24.99
macOS 26 or later on Apple Silicon · 7-day refund
Full comparison and details
Fireflies is built for teams: a bot joins your calls, everything lands in one searchable workspace, and it plugs into the rest of your stack. Minutes is built for one person who would rather the recording never left their Mac. Both turn meetings into notes; almost nothing else about them is the same.
Last updated: 18 September 2026
Full disclosure: this page is published by the makers of Minutes. Fireflies.ai's prices and limits below are taken from Fireflies.ai's own pages, checked on 18 September 2026.
The short version
Pick Minutes if the meetings are yours, the audio should stay on your machine, and you want the notes as files rather than rows in somebody's database.
Pick Fireflies.ai if you need one searchable record the whole team can reach, integrations into your CRM and chat tools, and a bot that attends calls you are not in.
Side by side
The comparison table is at the top of this page.
Where Minutes is better
- Nothing is uploaded. Recording, transcription and the summary run on your Mac with the models inside macOS. There is no server involved at any point, so nothing to trust and nothing to breach.
- No seats, no meter. $24.99 once with Crest, no per-seat bill and no storage cap: the audio is on your own disk, so the limit is your disk.
- The notes outlive the app. One Markdown file per meeting in a folder you chose. Cancel nothing, export nothing, they are already yours.
- Both sides kept apart by channel. Your microphone and the audio your Mac plays are separate channels, so attribution is a fact rather than a guess.
Where Fireflies.ai fits
- It is built for teams. One workspace, search across everyone's calls, and an assistant that answers questions about them. Minutes is a single-person tool.
- It joins meetings you skip. The bot attends and reports back. Minutes only hears your own Mac.
- Integrations. Summaries go into a CRM, Slack and the rest of the stack. Minutes writes to Calendar and Reminders.
- Unlimited transcription at $0. No cap on the free plan, with storage limited to 400 minutes per team.
The pricing math
Fireflies is free with unlimited transcription and 400 minutes of storage per team. Pro is $18 per seat per month, or $10 billed annually. Business is $29 and $19, Enterprise $39 annually. Minutes comes with Crest: $24.99 once buys Crest Pro, Take and Minutes.
One seat on Fireflies Pro paid monthly costs more in two months than owning Minutes outright, and a five person team passes it inside the first month on either billing. What you buy for that is the shared workspace and the integrations, which Minutes does not have. If none of that is what you needed, you are renting infrastructure to solve a personal problem.
FAQ
How much does Fireflies.ai cost?
Free with unlimited transcription and 400 minutes of storage per team. Pro is $18 per seat per month or $10 billed annually, Business $29 and $19, Enterprise $39 annually. Prices from Fireflies' pricing and help pages, checked 18 September 2026.
Does Fireflies record without joining the call?
It can now. The Fireflies desktop app for Mac (macOS 12 or later) records the audio your Mac plays with no bot in the call, and a Chrome extension does the same in the browser. The audio still goes to Fireflies to be transcribed, the desktop route keeps no audio file, and speakers come back as Speaker 1 and Speaker 2. The bot is for meetings you want it to attend without you. Minutes records the audio your own Mac plays and hears and transcribes it on the Mac.
Is there a private alternative to Fireflies for Mac?
Minutes, which does the same transcription and summarizing on your own machine with the models that ship inside macOS, so nothing is uploaded.
Do I need an account for Minutes?
You do not need one to download it. You sign in inside Minutes to start the trial and to carry your licence, which is what lets a purchase unlock every Mac you sign in on. The recording and the notes never touch it.
Which Macs does Minutes run on?
macOS 26 or later on Apple Silicon. That floor is why there is nothing to download and nothing to upload.
Keep the meeting on your Mac
Both sides transcribed, the summary written on device, decisions and promises pulled out with an Add button. Markdown in a folder you own. Comes with Crest: $24.99 once for Crest Pro, Take and Minutes.
Get all three apps, $24.99 Try free for 7 daysmacOS 26 or later on Apple Silicon · nothing uploaded, ever · 7-day trial, no card up front
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