Fireflies.ai
Ranked 3 of 4 meeting notetakers by recommenders
Used for searchable call transcripts and decent summaries, but critics say it falsely claimed human note-taking was AI and worry about cloud storage of meetings.
Used for searchable call transcripts and decent summaries, but critics say it falsely claimed human note-taking was AI and worry about cloud storage of meetings.
17 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 11
- approval share
- 35%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Seen as interesting and successful
“fireflies.ai is interesting though, that's more what i was looking for”
Comment from 16 Nov 2025 in “Three kinds of AI products work” “Yeah imo this is a success story.”
Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Claimed AI transcripts were human notes
“If you were one of the customers who bought an automated (AI) service and instead got 2 guys gathering info during meetings”
Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand” “Claiming that the transcripts were generated by a nonexistant AI is fraud and should be treated as such.”
Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand” “This was an incredibly stupid scheme, made even more stupid by publicly confessing to it.”
Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand” - Comment from 14 Nov 2025 on Hacker News
- Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand”
- Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand”
- Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand”
- Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand”
- Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand”
- Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand”
- Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand”
Stores meetings in US cloud
“Cool tool, but I'm sending dozens of internal meetings to an american company.”
Comment from 31 Mar 2026 in “Cohere Transcribe: Speech Recognition” “Don't they realize the company will store their whole conversation in the cloud”
Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “AI note-taking startup Fireflies was really two guys typing notes by hand”
Other meeting notetakers people recommend
The three most recommended other meeting notetakers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Granola | 11 | 11 | 50% | 8 | — | — |
| Docket meeting note-taking app | 8 | 3 | 73% | 3 | — | — |
| Fireflies.aiThis page | 6 | 11 | 35% | 3 | — | — |
| Summit meeting insights | 5 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
19 of the 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“require a ‘bot guest’ that announces itself and kills the vibe”
“Cool tool, but I'm sending dozens of internal meetings to an american company.”
“I use fireflies for sales calls (and all calls) currently - just to have a searchable transcript of the call.”
“fireflies.ai is interesting though, that's more what i was looking for”
“I use fireflies.ai for some of my meetings and the summaries are decent.”
“the service being sold on explicit, false pretenses”
“Don't they realize the company will store their whole conversation in the cloud”
“I guess that's a lie since the ai didn't work at the time.”
“If you were one of the customers who bought an automated (AI) service and instead got 2 guys gathering info during meetings”
“the same straight-up fraud description as appears in both stories”
“Pretending humans are AI is just straight up deceiving people.”
“ai being used for fakery instead of value”
“Claiming that the transcripts were generated by a nonexistant AI is fraud and should be treated as such.”
“This was an incredibly stupid scheme, made even more stupid by publicly confessing to it.”
“the problem is lying about the "note taker" as that could be the deciding factor for choosing a service, not price”
“Yeah imo this is a success story.”
“Selling an AI service that has no AI is lying.”
“lying to paying customers about the service is not okay”
“was him and the CEO joining the meetings and taking notes manually”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.