Alternatives
Granola alternatives, by what you're keeping.
Granola proved meeting notes could work without a bot joining the call — and it's the best‑funded app in the category. Here's the field around it, by published figures, and the trade each one makes. I make Snapbak, which appears below — read my card with extra suspicion.
What Granola is
Bot‑free notes with a history meter.
Granola listens to the meeting apps' system audio plus your microphone — no bot joins the call — and turns what it hears into notes. The catch is retention: the free tier keeps 30 days of history, and Business runs $14 or Enterprise $35 per user per month (published pricing, October 2026). The company raised at a reported $1.5B valuation in March 2026, up about six‑fold in ten months, which tells you how loud the bot‑free demand is.
- Bot‑free: system audio plus mic, nothing joins the call.
- No audio kept — notes are the record.
- Free tier: 30 days of history.
- Business $14; Enterprise $35 per user per month.
- Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android.
The field
What you'd be trading.
Every alternative keeps what Granola does well and gives up something else. Match the trade to what your meetings actually produce.
More history: Otter
Otter's free plan keeps your notes without a 30‑day wall, and its search is built on years of transcripts. The trade: a bot joins every call, and the free tier meters transcription at 300 minutes a month.
Unlimited recordings: Fathom
Fathom's free tier offers unlimited recordings and summaries — no history meter. The trade: it's the bot camp, so the participant list includes software.
The suite you already pay for: Zoom, Meet, Teams
Zoom's AI Companion, Meet's take‑notes‑for‑me, and Teams Premium all produce recaps with their own retention rules. The trade: the notes live in that platform's format, on that platform's servers.
The recording you keep: Snapbak
Snapbak records your screen — a walkthrough, a demo, the call you're presenting — and every capture gets automatic notes: a title, summary, chapters, and action items, computed on your Mac or with your own AI key. The files are yours; nothing uploads unless you choose. Bot‑free meeting capture is planned for a later release.
The checklist
Four questions about any bot‑free tool.
Bot‑free is the right instinct — these are the questions that decide whether a specific tool earns it.
Is Granola free?
Granola's free tier is real but metered by time, not minutes: notes for your meetings stay available for 30 days, and older history moves to the paid plans — Business at $14 or Enterprise at $35 per user per month (published pricing, October 2026). If your meetings matter longer than a month, the meter is the thing to check.
Does Granola record your audio?
No — that's its signature. Granola listens to the meeting apps' system audio plus your microphone and keeps no audio: the notes are the record. The trade to understand: without a recording, there's nothing to re‑listen to when a note is ambiguous.
What is the best free alternative to Granola?
It depends which Granola feature you're keeping. For bot‑free capture, the meeting suites' own recaps are the closest free shape. For unlimited recordings with summaries, Fathom's free tier is the strongest of the bot camp. For recordings plus automatic notes you keep forever, that's what Snapbak does for screen captures today.
Does Granola work on Mac?
Yes — Mac is its home platform, with Windows, iOS, and Android versions alongside (published platform list, October 2026). On Apple Silicon in particular, bot‑free capture is a natural fit for the machine you already have.
Snapbak
The local‑first capture half ships today.
Bot‑free meeting minutes are planned for a later release. Today, Snapbak records your screen with auto‑zoom and captions, takes redacted screenshots, does offline English dictation into any app, and writes AI notes for every capture — in a ~15–20 MB installer, local‑first by default.