Steno vs Fireflies.ai
Meeting notes without Fred in the room.
Fireflies is a cloud conversation-intelligence platform: its bot (Fred) joins your calls, recordings are stored and analyzed in Fireflies' cloud, and plans are metered by storage and AI credits. Steno is the private counterpart — it records on your machine, transcribes and summarizes locally, and nothing is uploaded, metered, or credited.
| Steno | Fireflies.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — everything included | Free (400 min storage, AI-credit caps); Pro $10/seat/month billed annually; Business $19; Enterprise $39 |
| Open source | Yes — MIT license | No — proprietary |
| Transcription | 100% on your device (Parakeet, Whisper) | In the cloud |
| AI summaries | On your device — bundled local models, no setup | In the cloud, metered by AI credits |
| Audio leaves your device | Never | Yes — stored in Fireflies' cloud |
| Bot joins your meetings | No bot — captures system audio directly | Yes — the Fireflies notetaker joins as a participant |
| Works with | Any meeting app, plus in-person | Meeting platforms via the bot; uploads for other audio |
| Usage limits | None — unlimited meetings and minutes | Storage minutes, AI credits, and recording-length caps per tier |
| Account required | No account, no sign-up | Yes |
| Platforms | macOS (Apple Silicon) · Windows (alpha) | Web browser, iOS, Android |
Fireflies.ai details taken from its public website and documentation, verified July 2026. Pricing and features change — check their site for current terms.
Fireflies is built for teams that want a cloud archive of every call, analyzed and integrated with their CRM. If what you actually need is accurate, private notes from your own meetings, Steno does that with no bot, no credits, and no data leaving your machine.
Choose Steno if
- A bot in the participant list isn't acceptable for your calls
- Compliance or client confidentiality rules out cloud storage of recordings
- You'd rather not budget storage minutes and AI credits — Steno has neither
- You want notes from in-person meetings, not just scheduled video calls
Choose Fireflies.ai if
- You want conversation analytics across a whole sales or support team
- You need deep CRM integrations — Salesforce, HubSpot — fed automatically
- A searchable cloud archive shared across the team is the point
Questions
Steno captures system audio and your microphone directly on your machine, so both sides of a Zoom, Teams, or Meet call are transcribed without anything joining the meeting. It works for in-person conversations too.
No. Everything runs on your own hardware, so nothing is metered. Unlimited meetings, unlimited length, unlimited summaries — the only resource used is your machine's disk and compute.
Steno is built around local-first, per-person notes; you can copy and share summaries wherever your team works. If your core need is a shared, always-on cloud archive with CRM automation, Fireflies is honestly the better match — at the cost of every call living in its cloud.
Fireflies' free tier caps storage at 400 minutes per team, limits AI credits, and holds back downloads and several AI features. Steno's free tier is the entire product — it's the only tier.
More comparisons: Steno vs Granola · Steno vs Otter.ai
Start keeping private notes.
Free. Open source. No account needed.
macOS 14.4+ (Apple Silicon) · Windows 10/11 (x64, alpha — unsigned) · ~4 GB for the default model