Blog Comparisons 3 min read
Granola alternatives for Mac in 2026, and how Everpaper compares
Granola is a bot-free meeting notepad that uses cloud providers for transcription and notes. The closest alternative that also has no bot is Everpaper, which transcribes on your Mac. Otter and Fireflies are bot-based tools with team features, and Screenpipe is a local recorder for developers. Stay with Granola if cloud processing is fine and you want its notes.
Disclosure. Everpaper is our product, and it is in this article. We say where it falls short, and every competitor fact below carries the date we checked it.
Facts as of October 2026. Prices and features change. Each source is linked at the end.
Granola does one thing well: it takes your rough notes and the call audio and gives you a written summary, with no bot in the meeting. People look for an alternative for a few reasons. Audio goes to cloud providers. The free plan keeps 30 days of history. Or they need a platform Granola does not cover.
Quick comparison
| Everpaper | Otter | Fireflies | Notion AI Meeting Notes | Screenpipe | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bot joins the call | No | Yes | Yes | No bot needed, per Notion | No |
| Where audio is processed | Your Mac | Cloud | Cloud | Cloud workspace | Your device by default |
| Platforms | macOS 15+, Apple silicon | Web, Zoom, Teams, Meet | Web, bot | Notion apps | macOS, Windows, Linux |
| Price, October 2026 | Private beta, no public price | Free 300 minutes a month; Pro $16.99 a month ($8.33 billed annually) | Free, Pro, Business, Enterprise | Business plan | Free; Basic $21 a month |
What Granola is, for comparison
Granola’s desktop app captures device audio, and all plans list “audio deleted after transcription”. The security page names transcription providers such as Deepgram and AI providers such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Basic is free with 30 days of history and no integrations, API or pre-meeting briefs. Business is $14 per user a month. The apps cover desktop, iOS, Android and Apple Watch.
Everpaper
Everpaper is our product. It records your microphone and the call’s system audio on your Mac with ⇧⌘M, transcribes on the device, labels speakers live, and uploads nothing. The summary and the “as we go” digest of topics, decisions and next steps need an AI provider, and an on-device one keeps them local. It also keeps your day, not only meetings, and can answer across both.
Limits: macOS 15 or later on Apple silicon only, no mobile app, private beta with no public price. The summary is generated from the transcript. No bot means you tell people you are recording.
Choose it if audio must stay on the Mac or you work in several European languages.
Otter
Otter’s bot joins Zoom, Teams and Google Meet. Basic is free with 300 minutes a month, up to 30 minutes per conversation and 3 lifetime imports, and it transcribes English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Chinese. Otter is a defendant in a consolidated class action, and on 13 August 2026 a judge let the core wiretap and privacy claims proceed, which is not a finding of liability.
Choose it for team transcripts across the big three platforms.
Fireflies
Fireflies sends a bot too. It names English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Italian and lists 100+ other languages in beta. It has Free, Pro, Business and Enterprise plans.
Choose it for team features and a wide language list, accepting the bot.
Notion AI Meeting Notes
Notion lists AI Meeting Notes on its Business plan, which also includes Notion Agent, and says no bot is needed. Free and Plus have a limited trial of Notion AI. It suits people who already keep their work in Notion.
Screenpipe
Screenpipe records your screen, audio and meetings on macOS, Windows and Linux. Capture stays on the device by default. Free covers one device, Basic is $21 a month or $250 a year.
Choose it for Windows or Linux, or to build on the data.
Stay with Granola if
You like its notes, cloud processing is acceptable, and you use Windows, iOS or Android as well as a Mac. Granola is available now, and Everpaper is not.
Apply for the Everpaper private beta.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a Granola alternative that runs on-device?
Everpaper records and transcribes meetings on a Mac and keeps recordings from ever being uploaded. Screenpipe also captures locally by default. Both differ from Granola, which uses cloud providers for transcription and notes.
Does Granola have a free plan?
Yes. Basic is $0 with 30 days of meeting history. Business is $14 per user a month and Enterprise is $35.
Does Granola use my data to train models?
Granola's security page says it trains on anonymized data for non-Enterprise users, who can opt out in Settings, and that training is off by default on Enterprise. It says third parties such as OpenAI and Anthropic are not allowed to train on your data.
Is Everpaper better than Granola?
It depends on the constraint. Everpaper keeps audio and transcript on the Mac and works in 25 European languages, but runs only on Apple silicon Macs and is in private beta. Granola runs on Mac, Windows, iOS, Android and Apple Watch and is available now.
Sources
Written by Marco Iannello Updated 21 October 2026 How we write comparisons