Fireflies.ai vs Shmeetings
Comparing a privacy-first offline meeting assistant with a cloud-based AI notetaker
What is Fireflies.ai?
The primary way in which Fireflies.ai differs from Shmeetings is in its approach to meeting transcription. Fireflies.ai joins each of your video calls as a participant named "Fred" and uses AI to generate meeting summaries. It also captures the audio from your video calls, transcribes the dialogue, and provides you with the option of asking the AI assistant (AskFred) questions about what happened during previous calls.
In terms of integration with your meeting applications, Fireflies supports Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom and other popular meeting platforms. Fireflies is ideal for sales teams, recruiters, and other businesses who want searchable meeting archives and the ability to integrate the transcription into their customer relationship management (CRM) systems. In addition to generating searchable transcripts and supporting CRM integrations, Fireflies.ai supports additional features such as conversation intelligence (the ability to analyze the conversations and identify common topics), and topic detection (the ability to identify topics being discussed).
There are some potential downsides to using Fireflies.ai. As Fireflies.ai joins your video calls as an actual participant, all of your attendees will see Fred appear as a participant in your video call. Additionally, all of the audio from your video calls will be captured by Fireflies.ai and processed in their cloud environment.
The Core Difference
Both Fireflies.ai and Shmeetings provide meeting transcription capabilities. However, the methods used by these two providers could not be more different.
Fireflies.ai captures your video call audio and then uploads it to their cloud servers, where it is processed by their remote AI models. This allows Fireflies.ai to support features like searchable transcripts, conversation intelligence, and the ability to answer questions about past calls through their AskFred AI assistant. All of your meeting recordings will reside on Fireflies' servers along with the recordings of every other Fireflies.ai customer.
Shmeetings captures audio from your Mac's system audio or microphone and processes it entirely on your local machine. Since Shmeetings doesn't capture any video, no visible bot will ever join your video calls. Similarly, since Shmeetings doesn't send your meeting audio anywhere, your meeting notes will never leave your computer. All of the AI processing is done using models that run locally on your Mac, ensuring that your meeting data remains private and secure.
If your company has approved cloud-based meeting transcription solutions and wants to maintain searchable meeting archives across multiple departments and has a desire to integrate the meeting transcription into CRM systems, Fireflies.ai may be the better solution. Conversely, if you would rather capture meeting transcripts without a visible bot joining your meetings and without sending your conversation to external servers, Shmeetings may be the better choice.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Shmeetings | Fireflies |
|---|---|---|
| Data Privacy | 100% Local Processing Never leaves your computer | Cloud-based Data sent to Fireflies servers |
| Bot Joins Call | No Invisible to participants | Yes "Fred" joins as participant |
| Account Required | No Just install and use | Yes Email signup required |
| Custom Prompts | Unlimited Any prompt, any length | AI Apps Only Pre-built templates |
| Works Offline | Yes No internet needed | No Requires internet |
| In-Person Meetings | Full Support Records from any audio source | Mobile App Only Limited transcription |
| Team Collaboration | No Single user only | Yes Shared channels, comments |
| Pricing | $39 once Lifetime license | $10-39/month Recurring subscription |
Privacy and Your Meeting Data
Fireflies.ai captures and stores your meeting recordings on their cloud-based servers. These servers enable Fireflies.ai to deliver features such as searchable meeting transcripts, conversation intelligence, and the ability to use their AskFred AI assistant to answer questions about previous meetings.
This capability to store meeting recordings on third-party servers may or may not be acceptable depending upon the nature of the meetings and the level of confidentiality required. For example, storing audio recordings of sales calls or general business meetings may be perfectly acceptable. On the other hand, storing audio recordings of conversations regarding employee performance, client negotiations, legal discussions, or strategic planning may be unacceptable due to privacy concerns.
Shmeetings, on the other hand, captures and stores your meeting recordings on your local machine. Shmeetings uses your Mac's local AI models to process the meeting audio, which means your recordings remain stored on your local machine. Since Shmeetings stores your meeting recordings on your local machine, there is no link between your identity and meeting recordings stored externally in the cloud. And there is no possibility for unauthorized individuals to access your meeting data since it remains on your machine.
Many organizations require approval from their IT department prior to allowing employees to use cloud-based meeting recording solutions. One advantage of Shmeetings is that there is no external approval process necessary since Shmeetings operates solely on your local machine.
Who Should Use Each Tool
Choose Shmeetings If You:
- Can't have bots joining your meetings
- Handle sensitive or confidential conversations
- Can't get approval for cloud AI tools at work
- Want custom prompts with sensitive context
- Prefer a one-time purchase over subscriptions
- Need to transcribe in-person meetings
Choose Fireflies If You:
- Need to share transcripts with your team
- Want conversation intelligence analytics
- Have company approval for cloud AI tools
- Need CRM integrations like Salesforce or HubSpot
- Want searchable archives across all meetings
- Don't mind a visible bot in your meetings
Pricing: One-Time vs Subscription
Fireflies.ai offers a very basic free tier that includes 800 minutes of storage and limited transcription credits. Paid tiers for Fireflies begin at $10/month for Fireflies Pro (if you opt for an annual billing cycle) and increase up to $39/month for Fireflies Business. Pricing for Fireflies Pro is based on a per-user basis, while Fireflies Business is priced per user.
Shmeetings charges a flat fee of $39 for the lifetime purchase price, with no ongoing monthly fees, no pricing tiers, and unlimited storage capacity. After four months of using Fireflies Pro, you will have spent more money on Fireflies Pro than you would spend on Shmeetings for life.
| Plan | 1 Year | 3 Years | 5 Years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shmeetings | $39 | $39 | $39 |
| Fireflies Pro | $120 | $360 | $600 |
| Fireflies Business | $228 | $684 | $1,140 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Will I have to allow a Fireflies bot to join my video calls?
Yes. Fireflies requires their bot to join your video calls as a participant in order to record and transcribe your meetings. This is the only method Fireflies currently supports. Shmeetings captures system audio on your local machine, so you will never have to deal with a visible bot.
Will Fireflies store my meeting recordings?
Yes. Fireflies stores all of your meeting recordings on their cloud servers. The meeting recordings will be available to you for searching and sharing, however, they will exist on a server that you do not have direct control over.
Will Shmeetings capture and transcribe Zoom meetings, like Fireflies does?
Yes. Shmeetings captures system audio, so it will work with any video application including Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, etc. The difference between Shmeetings and Fireflies is that Shmeetings processes the meeting audio locally on your Mac and never sends it to a cloud server.
Is the Fireflies free tier sufficient for most users?
The Fireflies free tier is limited in terms of the number of minutes of storage included (800 minutes) and the amount of transcription credits provided. While the free tier may be sufficient for casual users of Fireflies, users who plan on having many meetings will likely exceed the limits of the free tier much sooner than later. Shmeetings does not have any limits or restrictions.
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