Fireflies vs Cluely

Fireflies was actually one of the first meeting recorder solutions on the market. They managed to build remote tooling that would actually join in existing meetings, like in Google Meet or Zoom, act like a guest, and record the audio.

This was super impressive, back when online video conferencing software was more restrictive, and Google Meet for example didn't even have native video meeting recorder functionality.

We actually used Fireflies almost exclusively for years, super early days back in 2017, and it has come a long way since, moving more into that of a AI meeting assistant.

They've built out a unique feature-set around being able to create snippets of calls, and tag them to a specific playlist, to then reference later or share with your team or others:

It's a really cool idea, it's just in practice, how often will you really be using it? I could see this being more useful for very specific industry verticals or teams, but not most, and not in the way we use a meeting recorder tool in our day-to-day.

All-in-all, they give you a lot of tools to organize your online meetings. But that's where I sorta wish I could just do less. I'm already organizing so many other facets to my life, from file storage in Google Drive, to channels and notes in Slite. I really just want to record meetings, have them log to my CRM, and forget about them unless I need to reference them.

Thing is, if you aren't staying on-top of organizing your calls though, it almost feels like you're just not taking full advantage of what Fireflies has built, which honestly stresses me out. 😅

Fireflies is pretty clean overall—it looks decently nice, it's just that there's a lot vying for your attention even just on the call review page:

Do you view the AI summary? Create Soundbites? Maybe AskFred? Or a Smart Search? Maybe you just want to make a comment? 🤷

It's just a bit overwhelming until you get used to the interface, but overall design-wise, it is clean.

This is an area that we really have to hand it to Fireflies—they have focused on integrations quite deeply out of the gate. For example, they integrate with most of the best CRM tools on the market.

Fireflies’ pricing looks typical at first, but in practice it is fairly restrictive.

• Free tier is extremely limited with only 3 transcription credits, 800 minutes of storage per seat, and audio-only recording.
• To unlock integrations you must upgrade to the $18/user/mo Pro plan, which includes 8,000 minutes of storage but still does not offer video recording. With moderate usage, around 30 calls per month, that storage only lasts roughly 4–5 months before you are pushed to the highest tier if you want to keep historical recordings.

Because video recording is locked behind the top plan, many teams will need the most expensive tier immediately.

Cluely is just another AI chat wrapper as many others. The main differentiation is its ability to persist across calls and actively listen, while supplying recommended questions as the meeting goes on.

To explain this in a more tangible way, in comparing Cluely vs Granola (one of the best meeting recorder tools on the market), Granola ultimately sits in the background recording the call and only presents itself when a meeting is active. It then summarizes the transcript afterward and enriches any notes taken, allowing for perfect recollection of what was said in the conversation. Cluely on the other hand makes itself an active participant in the call.

For example, say you're on a call and the topic of another software product comes up, Cluely will begin recommending information to search that will give you more context without leaving the call:

The context of Windsurf came up, so it recommends relevant questions to search

The reality here is that it's no different than using the ChatGPT desktop app, pressing "CMD + Spacebar" and just writing a question. It's just that it's more preemptive taking the entire context of the call into consideration, and most specifically what was said in that moment to suggest showing information that might be relevant.

What they really do best is marketing via viral and rage-bait tactics. Trying to make their "hidden UI" and proactive prompting come off as being able to "cheat on everything". It's really just a feature decision, and creative messaging more than anything.

• Starter Tier: Free (with limited access to lower-end AI models - GPT 4.1, GPT o4-mini)
• Pro Tier: $20/mo (with unlimited access to paid AI models - e.g. GPT 5, Claude 4)
• Enterprise Tier: $200/mo (everything in Pro + custom integrations, RBAC, post-call analytics, SSO, centralized billing, and usage analytics & reporting dashboard)