Granola
4.7
Granola completes the rough notes you take during a meeting instead of sending a recording bot to sit in it. On Apple Silicon Macs the processing can stay on the device, which matters when the meeting is confidential.
- Commercial use OK
- Free tier
- Pricing
- From $18/mo
- Free tier
- Free tier
- Commercial use
- Permitted
- Japanese UI
- Not confirmed
- Enterprise contract
- Not confirmed
What it is good for
- Meetings where sending a recording bot would be awkward
- Confidential calls that should not stream audio to a cloud service
- Founders, executives and consultants who take their own notes
- Mixed English and Japanese meetings
Strengths and trade-offs
Strengths
- No recording bot joins the call — nothing for the other side to consent to
- On-device processing available on Apple Silicon Macs
- Whisper-based transcription handles mixed Japanese and English
- From $18/mo with a free tier; Pro $20/mo, Business $40 per seat
Trade-offs
- Team collaboration and CRM integration trail Otter and Fireflies
- SOC 2 Type II is still in progress
- For Japanese accuracy above all, Notta or CLOVA Note score higher
Editors' review
Meeting notes without a recording bot — on-device processing and workable Japanese support
Granola sits in the background and completes the notes you type during a meeting. The design choice that sets it apart is that no recording bot joins your Zoom, Meet or Teams call, so you get a record without putting the other party on the spot. On Apple Silicon Macs the processing can run on the device, which fits requirements where confidential audio must not leave the machine.
Japanese support is Whisper-based and good enough for real use. It is not optimised for Japanese the way Notta or CLOVA Note are, but it transcribes mixed English and Japanese meetings reliably, which suits anyone working across a domestic and an overseas team. The split is simple: Notta if Japanese accuracy is the priority, Granola if privacy and staying present in the meeting are.
Pricing starts at $18/mo for individuals with a free tier; Pro is $20/mo and Business $40 per seat. Web-based team collaboration and CRM integration do not match Otter or Fireflies, and SOC 2 Type II is still being worked on. This is a tool for an individual who wants notes to happen without managing them, not a company-wide minutes platform.
Verdict
The first choice for founders, executives and independent consultants who need no recording bot and on-device processing. For a team-wide minutes platform use Otter or Fireflies; for maximum Japanese accuracy, Notta or CLOVA Note.
Compiled from official documentation and public sources, with our own editorial judgement. We do not publish figures we cannot source.
Other meeting notes tools
Otter.ai
Transcription wired into Zoom, Google Meet and Teams, with automatic summaries and action items.
Fireflies.ai
The veteran meeting recorder: CRM sync, speaker analytics and topic extraction for teams.
tl;dv
Records, transcribes and summarises Zoom, Meet and Teams calls with shareable timestamps.
PLAUD NOTE
An AI voice recorder: capture, transcribe, then summarise through ChatGPT or Claude — hardware for meetings and interviews.