Fireflies.ai vs Circleback

Fireflies.ai

Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android

Desktop supports system-audio recording and live assistance. Mobile supports in-person recording, reviewing meetings, search, sharing, and tasks.

EvidenceFireflies desktop appFireflies mobile app

Circleback

Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, and Apple Watch

macOS and Windows apps capture online meetings without a bot, including system audio and video, with recording from the detected-meeting prompt. The iOS and Android apps record in-person conversations and include Assistant. Apple Watch records from your wrist without the iPhone nearby. Every app sends recordings into the same Circleback meeting system.

EvidenceCircleback recording guideCircleback desktop recordingCircleback mobile and Apple Watch apps

Fireflies.ai

Mobile and desktop room capture

iOS and Android can capture in-person conversations. Fireflies documents that mobile recordings often do not auto-detect speakers, so names may need manual correction. Bot-free desktop can also hear room/system audio, with its own media and generic-label caveats.

EvidenceFireflies mobile appFireflies speaker labels

Circleback

Phone, desktop, or Watch—with speaker labels

Record in-person conversations from iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, or Apple Watch. For quick capture, tap the iPhone Lock Screen widget, Android home screen widget, or Apple Watch complication, or press and hold your configured iPhone Action button. No separate recorder is needed. Recordings get the same speaker labels, notes, assigned action items, search, sharing, and automations as online meetings. Phone calls use an existing call recording imported into Circleback.

EvidenceCircleback product guideCircleback mobile and Apple Watch appsCircleback mobile recording shortcutsCircleback iPhone Action buttonCircleback Apple Watch complication

Fireflies.ai

Bot mode saves AV; bot-free desktop saves neither

This is the key evaluation detail: bot meetings can preserve audio/video and named speakers, while desktop bot-free mode produces notes/transcript without recording files and uses Speaker 1/Speaker 2 labels.

EvidenceFireflies bot-free desktop recording

Circleback

Optional recordings with playback, downloads, and clips

Every capture route can keep the source recording with the meeting. Bot recordings keep the meeting video, and bot-free desktop recordings keep meeting video by default, which you can turn off with the Record meeting video setting. Play it beside the transcript, download it, link to a moment, or make a clip. If you want notes and the speaker-labeled transcript without the recording, turn recording storage off.

EvidenceCircleback recording guideCircleback desktop recordingCircleback optional recording storage

Fireflies.ai

Notes, search, and a workspace-wide assigned task feed

Fireflies offers meeting search, AI apps, and live assistance. It automatically creates and assigns meeting tasks, lets teams manage all accessible tasks in one feed, and can turn action items into trackable work in several project tools. Usage credits and plan gates still apply to advanced AI apps and assistant capabilities.

EvidenceFireflies pricing guideFireflies AI creditsFireflies Tasks Feed

Circleback

Detailed standalone notes, assigned action items, and cited search

Circleback’s notes are designed to give someone who missed the meeting its context, decisions, and next steps. Type private notes during the meeting on web, desktop, or mobile, and Circleback uses them as it writes the AI notes, keeping the points you flagged and expanding them with context from the transcript. It automatically creates action items and assigns them when the conversation makes the owner clear. One workspace-wide list lets teams filter and complete tasks across meetings. Custom insights extract the fields a team needs, while Assistant searches meetings and connected email with citations. What’s shown on screen, like slides, dashboards, and docs, makes it into the notes, so Assistant (Ask Circleback) and AI tools connected over MCP can find it through the notes.

EvidenceCircleback product guideCircleback action items in LinearCircleback CLI documentationCircleback notes capture what’s shared on screen

Fireflies.ai

Meeting channels and cross-meeting search

The meeting library is searchable and collaborative, but the product is less centered on a unified relationship timeline combining meetings, email, calendar, people, and companies.

EvidenceFireflies pricing guide

Circleback

Meeting and email history for each person and company

Person and company pages combine rolling summaries, relationship timelines, emails, meetings, attendees, and upcoming events. Search and Assistant work across that context, so a conversation stays useful to the next person and the next team.

EvidenceCircleback product guide

Fireflies.ai

Enterprise rules can auto-route, share, and enforce privacy

Enterprise admins can match meeting title, host, participants, or internal/external type, then route to a channel, share with users or teams, or enforce privacy. Recaps default to teammates plus anyone with the link; review that setting before rollout.

EvidenceFireflies Rules EngineFireflies recap privacy defaults

Circleback

Conditional automatic sharing with workspace safeguards

Folders add meetings automatically by meeting name, participants, invitee emails or domains, and tags. Share a folder with specific people, teams, or the whole workspace, including people outside it. Privacy rules keep meetings like 1:1s out of shared folders, and admins can set or enforce default sharing access.

EvidenceCircleback automatic sharingCircleback enforced workspace settings

Fireflies.ai

Meeting rules, AI apps, CRM workflows, and automatic task handoff

Fireflies can automatically create and assign tasks, then route them to Linear, Asana, Monday.com, Planner, Salesforce, and other systems with meeting filters on eligible plans. It also supports specialized AI apps. The experience spans several feature systems rather than one simple general condition/action canvas.

EvidenceFireflies Rules EngineFireflies pricing guideFireflies Tasks FeedFireflies Linear integration

Circleback

Conditional workflows, CRM updates, and task creation

Run actions when meetings match conditions, extract the fields each team cares about, and route the result into the system where work happens. Sales can update the CRM; product and research can collect themes; engineering can open assigned issues in Linear or another tracker; recruiting and customer teams can route structured follow-up. Automations also post to Slack, call webhooks, and can be re-run for past meetings.

EvidenceCircleback product guide

Fireflies.ai

100+ integrations plus Zapier and API

Breadth is a major advantage across CRM, collaboration, storage, dialers, and productivity tools. Verify the plan required for each connector and direction of sync.

EvidenceFireflies integration directoryFireflies Linear integration

Circleback

Search other apps, then do the work there

Circleback Assistant can look up context and take actions in tools such as Linear, Notion, Asana, HubSpot, PostHog, Attio, Ashby, Intercom, and Plain. Automations can create Linear issues from assigned meeting action items, write action items to monday.com, and send outcomes to Slack, Salesforce, Zoho, and more. Connect additional tools through Zapier, Make, webhooks, or custom MCP servers.

EvidenceCircleback product guideCircleback Assistant connectors

Fireflies.ai

GraphQL API, webhooks, and a rich remote MCP server

Fireflies exposes transcripts and core meeting data through GraphQL plus webhooks for custom integrations. Its OAuth or API-key remote MCP server can retrieve full transcripts, summaries, action items, active meetings, analytics, soundbites, channels, and user data; it can also share, rename, organize, and clip meetings. Some advanced search and fetch tools remain experimental. Super Summary and Custom Apps data are still absent from the documented GraphQL API, and content passed into an external AI follows that provider’s retention terms.

EvidenceFireflies APIFireflies MCP tools

Circleback

The same complete meeting data for people and AI agents

Circleback is built for people and AI agents. The complete meeting record a person can access—its full speaker-labeled transcript, recording, notes, action items, metadata, attendees, and related people and companies—is also available programmatically through the public API, MCP, and CLI. The API also supports action-item updates. MCP and CLI add search and retrieval across meetings, transcripts, action items, calendars, email, people, companies, and tags, and can update meetings and tags, share meetings, and create, update, or delete action items. Connect ChatGPT or Claude, build internal tools, or receive meeting data by webhook.

EvidenceCircleback public APICircleback MCP documentationCircleback CLI documentation

Fireflies.ai

Business and Enterprise governance

Enterprise adds SSO/SCIM, Rules Engine governance, custom retention, and private storage. Its Super Admin role can access every workspace meeting, including “Only Me” content—useful for compliance, but a material privacy-policy decision. Fireflies says meeting content is never used for internal or external model training.

EvidenceFireflies pricing guideFireflies storage limitsFireflies Rules EngineFireflies data safetyFireflies compliance recording modesFireflies Enterprise controls

Circleback

Security, privacy, and workspace controls

Customer data is encrypted at rest and in transit and never used to train models. Circleback is SOC 2 Type II, certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, supports GDPR obligations, and is HIPAA-compliant with BAAs available. The security portal includes compliance materials and an external infrastructure pentest report. Available controls include single sign-on (SAML or OIDC) and SCIM provisioning, configurable data retention and recording storage, enforced workspace and sharing settings, teams and roles, domain and API key access controls, centralized billing, usage reporting, and free viewer seats.

EvidenceCircleback enforced workspace settingsCircleback security and data processingCircleback security overviewCircleback security portal

Fireflies.ai

100+ languages advertised

Fireflies advertises broad transcription coverage. Real-world speaker separation and accuracy still depend on capture mode, room acoustics, accents, and vocabulary.

EvidenceFireflies pricing guide

Circleback

100+ transcription languages

Users can choose from more than 100 meeting languages and separately control the output language used for generated notes.

EvidenceCircleback product guide