Free Fireflies Alternatives: What Each One Actually Caps (2026)

Fireflies has the most generous-looking free plan in this category: unlimited transcription and unlimited AI summaries, at no cost, forever. That is a real offer and the headline is not a trick.

The reason people still end up searching for an alternative is that the limit was moved somewhere less visible, and it is not the one you would guess.

What the Fireflies free plan actually caps

From Fireflies' own pricing page, the free tier is:

• Unlimited transcription
• Unlimited AI summaries
• 400 minutes of storage per team
• 20 AI credits

Transcribe as much as you like. Keep about six and a half hours of it — and that allowance is per team, so it divides as colleagues join rather than multiplying. A three-person team has the same 400 minutes that one person had.

That is the constraint that sends people looking, and it usually announces itself weeks later, at the moment you go back for something old.

The upgrade does not fix what most people think it fixes

This is the part worth knowing before you reach for a card. Here is what each paid tier changes:

Look at the last column. Pro costs $10 per seat a month and includes exactly the same 20 AI credits as the free plan. What you buy at that tier is storage — a genuinely large increase, from 400 minutes shared across the team to 8,000 minutes per seat — but not more AI processing.

So the upgrade path depends entirely on which limit you hit:

• Ran out of storage? Pro solves it comprehensively.
• Ran out of AI credits? Pro changes nothing. You are looking at Business at $19 per seat annually for 30, or Enterprise at $39 for 50.

A lot of people upgrade to Pro after hitting a wall, then discover it was the other wall.

What the alternatives actually give you

Every figure below is from the provider's own pricing page.

Fathom — the strongest free tier if bots are allowed

Fathom's free plan lists unlimited recordings and transcriptions, a choice of bot-free capture (in beta) or a meeting bot, instant AI call summaries, and clips, playlists and search across calls. No storage cap is stated, which makes it the most complete free offer of the group.

The line to read is one tier up: AI-generated action items and advanced summaries are Premium, at $20 a month or $16 billed annually. Team plans start at $19 per user a month, $15 annually, minimum two users; Business is $34, or $25 annually.

If you were using Fireflies free for the transcript and the recap, Fathom free is a straight upgrade. If you were using it to extract commitments, you are comparing Fireflies' AI credits against Fathom's Premium tier, not against its free one.

Otter.ai — more polished, more restrictive

Otter Basic is 300 transcription minutes a month, capped at 30 minutes per conversation, keeping only your 25 most recent conversations, with 3 file imports for the lifetime of the account.

Every one of those is tighter than Fireflies free. Otter is the more refined product and its free plan is closer to a trial. Pro is $8.33 per user a month billed annually or $16.99 monthly; Business is $19.99 annually or $30 monthly.

Moving from Fireflies free to Otter free is a downgrade on volume. It is only the right move if 25 conversations is genuinely all the history you want and you prefer the interface.

The platform you already pay for

Worth checking before adding a vendor, because it costs nothing extra and adds no participant to the call.

Zoom. Meeting summaries, transcription and call summaries are built into Zoom Workplace, and eligible paid Zoom Workplace plans include the core AI features at no additional cost. Zoom retired the AI Companion name in June 2026, so older guides refer to it by a name that no longer exists. Free Workplace Basic gets a capped tier — summaries and in-meeting questions for 3 hosted meetings a month, 3 AI note-taking uses, 20 AI queries — and its group meetings stop at 40 minutes regardless.

Microsoft Teams. Meeting recordings with transcripts appear from Teams Essentials at $4.00 per user a month upwards. Watch for the second obstacle: transcription is both a per-organiser and a per-user policy, so the button can be greyed out even on a paid licence. Detail in transcribing a Microsoft Teams meeting.

Google Meet. Transcripts require a paid Workspace edition — Business Standard or Plus, Enterprise Starter, Standard or Plus, Teaching and Learning Upgrade, Education Plus, or Workspace Individual. Nothing on a personal gmail.com account. Detail in transcribing a Google Meet call.

The constraint none of the pricing pages mention

Fireflies, Fathom and Otter all work the same way: they add a participant to your meeting, and that participant records it. It is visible to everyone on the call and it appears in the participant list.

A great many organisations prohibit that — for confidentiality, because consent gets legally complicated when a vendor's software is party to the conversation, or simply because the security team has not reviewed that vendor.

If that describes where you work, comparing free tiers is beside the point. None of them are available to you, at any price. What remains is the transcription built into the platform you already pay for, or working from the recording yourself.

Working from the recording

If you have the audio, you do not need a service, a seat, or a credit balance.

You can transcribe the file in your browser free: no account, no minute cap, no storage cap, and the file is never uploaded. The speech model downloads into the page and runs on your own machine, which is why there is nothing to meter — no server is paying for the compute.

The trade is honest. You supply the recording, so there is no bot joining calls on your behalf and nothing is captured automatically. And processing uses your own hardware, so a long file takes longer on an old laptop than it would on a server.

What you get in exchange is the set of limits that do not exist: no 400-minute team allowance, no credit balance to ration, no per-seat cost when a colleague needs it, and no vendor holding a copy of a conversation you were not allowed to upload.

Around that, Meetings Brief does voice capture in 13 languages, AI summaries in six formats, automatic action items, and semantic search across everything you have captured — free, without an account.

Which one, for which situation

You hit the 400-minute storage wall and want an archive. Fireflies Pro at $10 per seat annually is the direct fix — 8,000 minutes per seat is twenty times the free team allowance per person.

You ran out of AI credits. Pro will not help; it carries the same 20. Compare Business at $19 per seat annually against simply switching, because at that price the field is wide open.

You want the most capable free plan and bots are permitted. Fathom, with the caveat that action items sit in Premium.

Your company blocks meeting bots. Use the platform transcription you already pay for, and transcribe recordings yourself for anything it does not cover.

The content is too sensitive to upload. Process it on your own device. This is the only option on the list where the audio never leaves your machine.

You have noticed you never actually reread the transcripts. Then transcription volume was never the thing to optimise, and the tier comparison above is a distraction from a different problem — capturing decisions and commitments while they are still fresh.

Frequently asked questions

Is Fireflies really free?

Yes, genuinely — unlimited transcription and unlimited AI summaries at no cost. The limits are 400 minutes of storage per team and 20 AI credits, so what runs out is your ability to keep and process recordings, not to make them.

What does Fireflies Pro add over the free plan?

Storage, principally: 8,000 minutes per seat instead of 400 minutes shared across the team. It does not add AI credits — Pro includes the same 20 as the free plan. More credits start at Business, which has 30, and Enterprise, which has 50.

What is the best free Fireflies alternative?

For bot-based capture, Fathom's free plan is the most complete: unlimited recordings and transcriptions with instant AI summaries, though action items are a Premium feature. Otter's free tier is more restrictive than Fireflies on every axis. If bots are blocked at your company, neither is usable and transcribing recordings yourself is the route that works.

Is there an alternative with no storage limit at all?

Transcribing in the browser has no storage limit, because nothing is stored on a server — the file stays on your device and so does the output. Among hosted services, unlimited storage starts at Fireflies Business, at $19 per seat billed annually.

Can I use Fireflies without a bot joining the meeting?

Fireflies' model is bot-based capture. If your organisation prohibits bots in meetings, the workable options are the transcription built into Zoom, Teams or Google Meet, or transcribing a recording afterwards — neither of which adds a participant.

Do these tools train on my meeting content?

It varies by provider and by tier, and it is more permissive on free plans than paid ones. Look in each privacy policy for language about improving services using customer content. If the answer matters, the strongest position is not sending the audio anywhere at all.

How much is 400 minutes of storage in practice?

About six and a half hours — roughly thirteen half-hour meetings, or fewer once you account for the calls that overrun. Shared across a team rather than per person, which is the detail that catches people as a tool spreads internally.