Aside vs Fireflies.
Fireflies sends something into your meeting and keeps what it hears. Aside listens to the Mac in front of you and writes the result to your disk.
- Fireflies$18/moper user, per month, at list monthly price
- Fireflies400 minof storage per team on the free plan, not per person
- Aside$79 onceand then Aside stops charging you
| What is being compared |  Aside |
Fireflies |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Plus. $8/mo all-in, or $79 once (cloud optional) | Limit. $18 / user / mo, $10 billed annually. Business $29, $19 annually |
| Free | Limit. 10 meeting trial | Plus. Unlimited transcription, 400 minutes of storage per team, 20 AI credits |
| Joins the call | Plus. Never, no bot and no attendee | Limit. Yes. Fred joins as a participant, or auto-joins from your calendar |
| Where transcripts live | Plus. Markdown in a folder you pick, Git and Obsidian friendly | Limit. Fireflies’ cloud |
| Transcription | Plus. On your Mac, an open speech model, ~99 languages | Limit. Their servers. No on-device mode on their pages |
| Speaker labels | Plus. On your Mac, and the mic is already a separate track from the far end | Plus. Speaker Recognition, on their own description |
| Own model or API key | Plus. Yes. Free from us, your provider bills you, or Ollama for free | Limit. No |
| MCP for agents | Plus. Included in the $79, and it can read a meeting while it runs | Plus. They publish an MCP server and an API |
| In-person conversations | Plus. Recorded like any other, the capture never knew which app made the sound | Limit. A bot needs a meeting to join |
| Platform | Limit. macOS only | Plus. Web, Chrome extension, desktop, iOS and Android |
| macOS version needed | Limit. macOS 26 or later | Neither. Not published |
Where the two actually differ.
Fireflies collects the audio by joining the call. That is why it works from a phone, from Windows, from a browser and with your laptop shut, and why every other person in the meeting sees a participant that is not a person. Aside captures the Mac’s system audio and your microphone as two separate streams, which is why nothing appears in the attendee list and why a conversation at a table records exactly like a call. The recording guide is the long version of that trade, including the parts where the bot wins.
The second difference is where the note ends up. A Fireflies transcript is a row in their store, reachable through their web app, their API and their MCP server. An Aside note is a Markdown file in a folder you picked, so it opens in Obsidian, in a text editor, in Git, and in ten years with no account at all. Notes as files covers what that changes and the four things a folder cannot do.
The third is the model. Fireflies runs its own; Aside lets you point it at your own Anthropic, OpenAI, Kimi or GLM key, or at Ollama, in which case nothing leaves the machine at any step. That is a $0 running cost after the licence, and it is the reason the price is a one-time number rather than a seat.
Last updated 21 August 2026.
Where Fireflies is the better pick.
If you need a recording of a meeting you are not in, Fireflies is the answer and Aside is not. The bot attends without you, which is the whole point of a bot, and no on-device recorder can do it.
- You are not on a Mac. Aside is macOS 26 or later and nothing else. Fireflies runs in a browser, on Windows, on iOS and on Android.
- You want the meeting captured while you skip it. A bot joins whether or not you do, and it keeps working with your laptop shut.
- You are a team with a CRM. Fireflies is built around shared workspaces, integrations and sales workflow. Aside has no team layer at all.
- You want a free plan that keeps working. Aside has ten free meetings and then it asks for money. Fireflies has a free tier you can stay on.
- You need the transcript in other software. They publish an API and an MCP server. Aside’s answer is a file on disk and an MCP server.
Best for.
- Aside. One person on a Mac who does not want a bot in the room and wants the notes to end up as Markdown files they keep.
- Fireflies. Teams, anyone off a Mac, and anyone who needs a meeting captured while they skip it.
Aside, pros
- Nothing joins the call, so nobody sees an extra attendee and in-person conversations record too.
- Transcription runs on your Mac, and every meeting lands as a Markdown file in a folder you pick.
- Bring your own key or run Ollama, and the running cost after the licence is nothing.
Aside, cons
- macOS only, and macOS 26 or later at that.
- No team layer, no CRM sync, no shared workspace.
- No free tier that keeps working, and no way to record a meeting you are not in.
Asked before switching.
Is Fireflies free?
There is a free plan and it is generous on transcription: their pricing page prints “Unlimited transcription”, “400 mins of storage/team” and “20 AI credits” on it. Storage is the cap that bites, because it is per team rather than per person, and the AI credits are what the summaries spend. Paid starts at $18 per user per month, or $10 if you pay for a year up front.
Does Fireflies join the meeting as a bot?
Yes. Their notetaker joins the call as a participant, either because you invited it or because it auto-joined from your calendar, so everyone in the meeting sees an extra attendee. Aside never joins anything: it records your Mac’s own system audio and your microphone, so there is no attendee, no link to paste and nothing to invite.
Where does Fireflies keep my transcripts?
In their cloud. Their web app, their search across meetings, their mobile apps and their API all read from that same store. Aside writes each meeting as a Markdown file into a folder you chose, so the note opens in any editor and needs no account.
Does Fireflies transcribe on my machine?
Their pages describe no on-device mode. Aside transcribes on your Mac. Writing the note is the one step that can leave the machine, and with your own API key or a local model through Ollama it does not.
Is Aside cheaper than Fireflies?
At list monthly prices, yes: $8 a month against $18 per user per month, and $79 once is about four and a half months of Fireflies Pro. Billed annually Fireflies Pro is $10 a month, so the monthly gap narrows to $2 and the one-time licence is about eight months of it. Fireflies’ free plan may be all a light user ever needs.
Keep reading.
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Aside vs Otter
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Recording without a bot
Teams, FaceTime and Slack huddles, each with the manual route and where it goes wrong.
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