Comparison
Ghosty Notes vs Fireflies
Fireflies has a genuinely strong privacy story for a cloud tool - a zero-day vendor retention policy, SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR certification. It can also record without a bot in the call, though that mode loses its speaker labels. What it cannot do is keep the audio local: it still has to reach Fireflies' servers before it can be deleted. Ghosty Notes never uploads the audio, so there is nothing to delete, and it keeps speaker labels either way.
| Ghosty Notes | Fireflies | |
|---|---|---|
| Records without a bot in the call | Yes | No - bot joins as a visible participant |
| Where transcription happens | On your device | In the cloud |
| Your audio leaves your machine | Never | Yes |
| MCP server for AI apps | Free, every tier | Not offered |
| Free tier limit | Unlimited | 400 min storage, 20 AI credits/mo |
| Data retention policy | Nothing ever transmitted | Zero-day vendor retention (transcribed, then deleted) |
| Notes stored as | Markdown on your disk | Fireflies' cloud |
| Runs fully offline | Yes (free mode) | No |
| CRM push (Salesforce, HubSpot) | Not built | Yes |
| Entry price | Free, Pro $5.00/mo ($54/yr) | Pro $10/seat/mo (billed annually), $18/mo monthly |
Figures from Fireflies' public pricing and its own published security page, cross-checked against third-party pricing aggregators 2026-08-27. Fireflies' "Zero Data Retention" claim means meeting content is not stored by any third-party vendor after processing and is not used to train AI models - a genuinely strong retention promise, distinct from Ghosty's no-transmission claim in local mode.
When Fireflies is the better pick
- You need cross-meeting search across a team library today.
- You want CRM push into Salesforce or HubSpot out of the box.
- You want a SOC 2 / HIPAA / GDPR-certified vendor and are fine with cloud processing.
- You need BYO-storage (GCS/S3) on an Enterprise plan.
When Ghosty Notes is the better pick
- You don't want a bot joining your calls as a visible participant.
- You want a no-transmission guarantee, not just a fast-deletion policy.
- You use Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or Codex and want free MCP access - Fireflies has no MCP server.
- You want your notes as plain markdown files you own, not records in Fireflies' cloud.
- Unlimited free meetings matter, and a 400-minute storage cap does not work.
See how Ghosty stacks up against every competitor, or read the Granola, Otter, and Fathom comparisons.
Keep the good privacy policy. Skip the bot and the upload.
Try the local-first alternative. Free, on your Mac, no account.
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