Granola Alternative in 2026 — Beyond Meeting-Only AI Notes

Granola is a well-designed meeting notepad. You jot rough notes during a call, and AI fills in the gaps from the audio transcript. For that specific use case, it works.

But a growing number of users hit the same walls: meetings-only capture, cloud dependency, Google Workspace requirement, no screen content, and no way to build on top of it. If you're reading this, you've probably hit one of those walls yourself.

The alternatives below differ in what they capture and how they process it.

Why People Look for Granola Alternatives

It Only Captures Meetings

Granola records during calendar meetings. Slack threads, code reviews, research, email, and browser activity between those meetings are outside its capture.

Cloud-Only Processing

Your meeting audio goes through Granola's servers. Transcription runs through third-party providers (Deepgram, Assembly). Notes are processed by OpenAI and Anthropic APIs. Granola states these providers won't train on your data, but the data still leaves your device.

On the free and Business plans, Granola itself trains on anonymized user data by default. You can opt out in settings, but it's on by default. Enterprise ($35/user/month) disables this.

Google Workspace Lock-In

Granola requires a Google Workspace account to sign up. If your company uses Microsoft 365, ProtonMail, or self-hosted email, you can't use it. This is a hard blocker for many teams.

No Screen Content

When someone shares their screen and walks through a spreadsheet, Granola transcribes the words but misses the numbers on screen. Shared URLs in Zoom chat, slides, code walkthroughs — all invisible to an audio-only tool.

No Developer API

You can export notes to Slack, Notion, and a few CRMs. But there's no API to query your meeting data programmatically, build custom integrations, or pipe data into your own tools. The Business plan adds Zapier, but that's it.

Free Tier Limitations

The free plan limits meeting history to about 14 days. After that, older notes become inaccessible. If you need to reference a meeting from last month, you'll need the $14/month Business plan.

The Alternatives

Screenpipe: capture across your workday

Screenpipe captures screen text and audio continuously in the background, 24/7.

	Screenpipe	Granola
Capture scope	24/7 screen + audio	Meetings only
Screen content	All monitors, accessibility API + OCR	None
Audio	System + mic, always-on	Meeting audio only
Data storage	100% on your device	Cloud (AWS)
Source	Source-available, fully auditable	Closed source
Works offline	Yes	No
Platforms	Mac, Windows, Linux	Mac, Windows, iOS
AI model	Any — Claude, GPT, Ollama, local	Built-in only
Developer API	Full REST API + MCP server	None (Zapier on Business)
Account requirement	None	Google Workspace
Price	$25/mo (Basic), free tier available	$14/mo Business, $35/mo Enterprise

For meetings specifically, Screenpipe captures the full audio transcript without a bot joining the call — similar to Granola — but also captures everything shown on screen during the call. After the meeting, you can ask the AI to summarize, list action items, or extract specific information.

The difference shows up outside meetings. That Stack Overflow answer you read at 10am, the Slack message with the deployment steps, the URL someone pasted in Teams — all indexed and searchable. You can pipe daily summaries to Obsidian or Notion automatically.

The code is on GitHub. Your security team can audit it. No cloud account needed.

Fathom — Free Meeting Recorder With Video

Fathom records meeting audio and video without a bot, similar to Granola's no-bot approach. It generates AI summaries and action items, and offers a generous free tier with unlimited recording.

Good for: Teams that want meeting recordings with video playback and CRM integration (HubSpot, Salesforce). Fathom's free plan is more generous than Granola's.

Limitations: Meetings only. Cloud-based. No screen capture outside of meetings. No developer API for custom workflows.

Fireflies — Bot-Based With Search

Fireflies sends a bot into your meetings to record and transcribe. It has strong search and analytics features — topic tracking, sentiment analysis, conversation intelligence.

Good for: Sales and customer success teams that need conversation analytics across many calls.

Limitations: The bot is visible to all participants. Cloud-only. $19/month for useful features. No capture outside meetings.

Otter.ai — Real-Time Transcription

Otter focuses on real-time transcription with speaker identification. It works for both virtual and in-person meetings via your phone.

Good for: People who need live captions and real-time collaboration on transcripts during meetings.

Limitations: Meetings and conversations only. Cloud-based. The free tier is limited to 300 minutes/month. No screen capture.

Which Alternative Fits Your Situation

"I need meeting notes without the Google Workspace requirement" Fathom or Screenpipe. Both work regardless of your email provider.

For capture across your workday, Screenpipe records screen and audio between meetings as well as during them.

"I need everything local — no cloud" Screenpipe. 100% local processing, source-available, works offline. Every other option here sends data to their servers.

"I need a developer API" Screenpipe. Full REST API and MCP server for AI agent integration. Build custom pipes that process your captured data however you want.

"I want the closest thing to Granola but with more features" Fathom gives you a similar no-bot meeting experience with added video playback. Screenpipe gives you that plus full-day capture.

The Core Trade-Off

Granola combines your rough notes with a meeting transcript to fill in details.

The trade-off is that focus means limitations. No screen content, no between-meeting capture, no API, no offline mode, no way to own your data. If those matter to you, the alternatives above each address different subsets of those gaps.

Screenpipe adds continuous screen and audio history, which helps when you need to retrieve work outside meetings.

Related:

Try Screenpipe →