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A ghost records your meeting. The audio stays on your Mac.
What makes an AI notetaker the best one for you depends on where your audio ends up. Most of these tools can now record without a visible bot in the call, so that is no longer the dividing line. What still separates them is where the audio goes. Every other tool here uploads it. Ghosty Notes transcribes it on your Mac with the built-in models and never uploads it, on the free tier. Here's how it stacks up against Granola, Otter, Fireflies, Fathom, and Krisp.
| Ghosty Notes | Granola | Otter | Fireflies | Fathom | Krisp | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Audio never leaves your device | Yes | No - uploaded | No - uploaded | No - uploaded | No - uploaded | No - uploaded unless Enterprise |
| Can record with no bot in the call | Yes, always | Yes | Yes | Yes - but loses speaker labels | Yes - Mac only | Yes |
| Fully local transcription, on the free tier | Yes | No - cloud, even on free | No | No | No | No - local is Enterprise-only |
| Notes stored as files you own | Yes - markdown on disk | No - Granola's cloud | No - Otter's cloud | No - Fireflies' cloud | No - Fathom's cloud | Not found |
| MCP server on the free tier | Yes, unlimited | No - Business plan only | Yes - within the 300 min/mo cap | Not offered | No - paid tiers only | No free tier at all |
| Real free tier | Yes, unlimited meetings | Yes, 30-day history cap | Yes, 300 min/mo | Yes, 400 min storage per team | Yes, unlimited recordings | No - 7-day trial only |
| Cheapest paid tier | $5.00/mo ($54/yr) | $14/user/mo, monthly only | $8.33/mo annual ($16.99 monthly) | $10/seat/mo annual ($18 monthly) | $15/user/mo annual ($19 monthly) | $8/user/mo annual ($16 monthly) |
Pricing and feature figures sourced from each company's own pricing page, cross-checked against third-party pricing aggregators (claap.io, lindy.ai, sonix.ai, felloai.com), verified 2026-08-27 and 2026-08-28. Krisp publishes no free tier and no public price for its paid plans - it offers a 7-day trial only. "Cheapest paid tier" reflects each vendor's lowest advertised paid plan billed at its cheapest interval, not feature-equivalent tiers.
One page per competitor
For the full detail on any one comparison - including honest calls on where each competitor is genuinely better - read the dedicated page.
What it costs per year, including the ones you pay for
Every figure below was read off the vendor's own published pricing page, and the date is on each page. Free tiers are listed because a free tier that silently caps you at one meeting a month is not free.
| Tool | Free tier | Paid, per year | Where the audio goes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ghosty Notes | Unlimited meetings, on-device, no account | $54, or $60 if you pay monthly | Stays on your Mac. Never uploaded, on any tier. |
| Granola | 30-day meeting history, summaries only | $168 at $14/user/mo, monthly billing only | Uploaded to Granola's cloud. |
| Otter | 300 minutes a month, 30-minute cap per call | $100 at $8.33/mo on Pro, billed annually | Uploaded to Otter's cloud. |
| Fireflies | Transcription capped, plus a separate credit allowance | $120 at $10/seat/mo on Pro, billed annually | Uploaded, then deleted under a zero-retention policy. |
| Fathom | Genuinely unlimited transcription, free | $192 at $16/mo on Premium, billed annually | Uploaded to Fathom's cloud. |
Two of those free tiers are the reason this list exists. Otter's is 300 minutes a month across a 30-minute cap per call, so a single long meeting can eat a seventh of it. Fireflies' is metered in AI credits rather than minutes, so summarising costs extra even on the free plan. Fathom's is the most generous free tier of the five, and we say so onour own comparison page.
See it for yourself. No account, no upload.
Download Ghosty Notes and record your next meeting on your own machine.
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