Speakhold
Speakhold vs Fireflies
Fireflies sends a bot into the meeting and keeps the recording in the cloud. Speakhold records on your Mac, nobody sees a bot join, and the audio is deleted once the notes are written.
Two different ideas
Fireflies is a service: a notetaker bot joins the call, the audio is uploaded, and the transcript, summary and search live in their web app, shared with your team. Speakhold is an app on one Mac: it records your microphone and what the Mac is playing, transcribes both on the Neural Engine, writes one markdown file with the notes and the transcript, and deletes the audio.
Where they differ
| Speakhold | Fireflies | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, MIT licence | Free tier with limits; paid plans per seat |
| A bot joins the meeting | No | Yes, visible to everyone on the call |
| Where the audio goes | Yes, stays on your Mac and is deleted | Cloud |
| Works with | Any app that plays audio on the Mac: Zoom, Meet, Teams, FaceTime, Slack huddles | Calendar-connected meeting platforms |
| Notes written by | Claude Code on your Mac, your own Claude key, or Apple Intelligence on-device | Their models |
| Output | A markdown file per meeting in a folder you choose | Web app, integrations, team search |
| Who spoke | You and Them, far-side voices told apart on-device | Named speakers |
| Also does dictation | Yes | No |
As of October 2026. Corrections welcome via pull request.
Why people switch
The bot. Clients notice it, some ask for it to leave, and some meetings cannot have a third party present. Speakhold is invisible to the other side because it records on your Mac. The second reason is where the recording lives: nowhere, once the notes are written. The file is plain markdown in your own folder, so it goes into Obsidian, a wiki, or a git repo without an export step.
Why you might stay with Fireflies
Fireflies is built for teams: shared workspace, search across every meeting, CRM integrations, mobile. Speakhold is personal and local. If three people need the same notes an hour later, Fireflies does that and Speakhold means sending a file.
Do I need a virtual audio driver like BlackHole?
No. Speakhold uses a Core Audio process tap, built into macOS 14.2 and newer, behind the "System Audio Recording Only" permission.
Does the other side know?
Nothing joins the call. Check your local recording-consent rules; Speakhold does not announce itself.
How good are the notes?
With Claude Code or a Claude key, the whole transcript is read and you get Summary, Decisions, Action items and Open questions. The on-device fallback is fine for short calls and weak on long ones, and the file says which was used.
Try it
Free · MIT · macOS 14+ · Apple Silicon · brew install --cask sturzael/tap/speakhold
Compared with Willow Voice · Wispr Flow · Superwhisper · MacWhisper · Fireflies · Otter · How to record a call without a bot