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

Desktop apps handle bot-free system audio and video. The iOS and Android apps record in-person conversations and include Assistant. Apple Watch can record from your wrist without the iPhone nearby, then sends the meeting through the same transcription and notes pipeline.

EvidenceCircleback recording guideCircleback 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 an in-person meeting from iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, or Apple Watch. Circleback separates and labels the speakers instead of returning one undifferentiated wall of text. Imported phone recordings get the same treatment.

EvidenceCircleback product guideCircleback mobile and Apple Watch apps

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

A recording when you want one; notes-only when you do not

Every capture route can keep the source recording with the meeting. Play it beside the transcript, download it, link to a moment, or make a clip. If you only want notes and the speaker-labeled transcript, turn recording storage off.

EvidenceCircleback recording guideCircleback optional recording storage

Fireflies.ai

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

Fireflies offers strong meeting search and multiple AI surfaces. 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

Our editorial judgment is that Circleback’s notes are more detailed and need less transcript archaeology than the short recaps common in meeting tools. It automatically creates action items, assigns each one to an owner when the conversation makes the owner clear, and gathers work from every meeting in a workspace-wide view where it can be filtered and marked done. Custom insights extract the fields a team cares about, while Assistant searches meetings and connected email with citations.

EvidenceCircleback product guideCircleback action items in LinearCircleback CLI documentation

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

A shared company memory, not isolated meeting pages

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. This is genuinely strong automation. The default recap visibility is broader than many buyers expect—teammates plus anyone holding the link—so configure the workspace default deliberately.

EvidenceFireflies Rules EngineFireflies recap privacy defaults

Circleback

Conditional automatic sharing with workspace safeguards

Automations can share matching meetings with specific people, teams, or the whole workspace based on titles, participants, invitee emails or domains, tags, and combined conditions. Admins can set or enforce default sharing access while members retain explicit controls for private or sensitive conversations.

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

One automation layer for every function

Run actions when meetings match conditions, extract the fields each team cares about, share notes, 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 re-run against older 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, and Intercom. 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. Zapier, Make, webhooks, and custom MCP servers cover the long tail.

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 are read-only and add search and retrieval across meetings, transcripts, action items, calendars, email, people, companies, and tags. Use the stack from ChatGPT or Claude, build internal tools, or receive meeting payloads 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

Industry-leading security, privacy, and governance

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