Notion Meeting Recorder excels for teams already embedded in the Notion ecosystem, offering seamless integration with existing workspaces where meeting notes automatically connect to project databases and task boards. The tool captures both virtual and in-person meetings through local device audio recording, generating summaries and action items that stay within your Notion workspace. However, it requires significant Notion adoption to realize its full value and comes with an additional $10 monthly fee per user on top of existing Notion subscriptions, while offering limited customization for automation workflows.

Fireflies.ai serves as a comprehensive meeting assistant that joins virtual calls across 100+ platforms and languages, making it suitable for sales teams, remote organizations, and businesses needing extensive meeting documentation. The platform offers strong transcription accuracy with speaker identification and provides a generous free tier for smaller teams to get started. Nevertheless, it struggles with in-person meetings, relies entirely on cloud storage rather than local options, and its automation capabilities remain basic despite numerous third-party integrations.

Notion Meeting Recorder fits best for established Notion users who prioritize keeping all project information centralized, particularly product teams, consultants, or small businesses already managing their workflows entirely within Notion. The tool works well for organizations that value data ownership and want meeting insights directly connected to their existing documentation and task management systems.

Fireflies.ai targets sales organizations, customer success teams, and distributed companies that need meeting intelligence across multiple platforms and languages, especially those requiring CRM integration and extensive meeting archives. While both tools offer solid transcription and basic integrations, neither provides the deep workflow automation or comprehensive task management capabilities needed to transform meeting insights into meaningful business outcomes without significant manual intervention.

Comparison table

What users say about Notion Meeting Recorder and Fireflies.ai

Users have mixed feelings about Notion's meeting recording capabilities, with reviews indicating significant limitations in its functionality. According to detailed analysis, this is not a serious meeting assistant but rather serves as a lightweight feature for basic conversation recording within the Notion ecosystem. While it offers some convenience for users already embedded in Notion's workspace, it falls short of providing comprehensive meeting assistance features that professionals typically require.

In contrast, Fireflies.ai receives overwhelmingly positive feedback from users who praise its comprehensive AI-powered meeting assistance capabilities. Reviews consistently highlight that Fireflies is one of the best AI note-takers you can find, making it suitable for both internal and external meetings. Users appreciate its robust feature set and reliability, which explains why it has gained widespread adoption among professionals seeking a dedicated meeting recording and transcription solution.

One major reason users switch away from Notion Meeting Recorder is the requirement for heavy investment in the Notion ecosystem. The tool isn't designed to work as a standalone solution and requires users to build out their entire workspace infrastructure within Notion to get the maximum benefit. This creates a significant learning curve for teams that aren't already fully committed to using Notion for their project management, task tracking, and documentation needs. Users often find themselves falling into a "build your setup" trap where they need to configure multiple pages and databases just to make the meeting recorder functional for their workflow.

Cost accumulation presents another significant barrier for many users. The AI meeting notes feature requires a $10 per member per month add-on (or $8 if billed annually) on top of existing Notion plan fees. For teams that aren't already paying for Notion or those looking for a simple meeting transcription tool, this additional cost becomes difficult to justify, especially when there are alternatives available that offer meeting recording as their primary focus rather than as an expensive add-on feature.

The tool's limitations outside of virtual meeting platforms also drive users to seek alternatives. Unlike dedicated meeting recording solutions, Notion's recorder doesn't have a live bot that joins calls automatically and relies entirely on the user's device audio capture. This means if there are any issues with local audio setup or device microphone capabilities, users risk missing important meeting content entirely. Additionally, the tool lacks robust support for in-person meetings compared to solutions specifically designed for various meeting formats, making it less versatile for teams that need consistent recording across different meeting types.

Many users find themselves leaving Fireflies.ai due to limitations with in-person meetings and local recording capabilities. Fireflies is primarily designed for virtual meetings and lacks a dedicated in-person mode, making it unsuitable for teams that frequently conduct face-to-face meetings or prefer local recording options. While users can upload audio files of offline meetings for transcription, this creates an extra step and doesn't provide the seamless experience needed for hybrid work environments. The platform's reliance on cloud-based recording through their bot or browser extension means users can't truly record meetings locally on their devices.

Cost concerns drive many teams to seek alternatives, especially as their usage scales. While Fireflies offers a free tier, it's quite restrictive with only 800 minutes of storage and a 2-hour maximum per meeting limit. As teams grow, the pricing can become substantial - ranging from $10 per user monthly for the Pro plan up to $39 per user monthly for Enterprise features. Many users find these costs add up quickly for larger teams, particularly when they need advanced features like video recording, analytics, or HIPAA compliance that are only available in higher-tier plans.

Technical limitations and accuracy issues also prompt users to switch platforms. Many users report transcription errors when there's overlapping speech or difficulty with names, and accent variations can significantly affect accuracy, requiring manual double-checking of transcripts. Speaker labeling becomes problematic when multiple people talk simultaneously, and some users experience delays when the Fireflies bot joins Teams meetings. These reliability concerns become particularly frustrating for teams that depend on accurate meeting records for important business decisions or compliance purposes.

Using Notion Meeting Recorder

Does Notion Meeting Recorder work for in-person meetings?

Yes, Notion Meeting Recorder works for in-person meetings. It can capture in-person discussions using your device's microphone and doesn't require a meeting bot. You can set your phone or laptop in a conference room and have Notion transcribe the conversation. The feature is designed for both online and offline use, and Notion even has a mobile app to record meetings on the go.

Does Notion Meeting Recorder require a meeting bot to join the meeting?

No, Notion Meeting Recorder does not require a meeting bot to join the meeting. It records audio locally from your computer by capturing system output and microphone input directly. This local recording approach means you just press "Start" in Notion, and it listens to your device's audio without needing to insert a bot participant into the meeting.

What do users say about the quality of Notion Meeting Recorder transcriptions?

Users report positive feedback about transcription quality. Early users say that Notion's AI does a good job extracting key points from dense conversations and making them accessible and actionable for the team. The overall sentiment in the Notion community is strongly positive about the AI note-taking capabilities, with users highlighting it as a valuable productivity booster.

How does Notion Meeting Recorder help users follow up on action items?

After a meeting ends, Notion automatically generates a summary plus a list of next steps from the transcribed conversation. These action items can be converted into checkboxes, assigned to owners, or moved into your task database within Notion with minimal manual effort. Since the notes live directly in Notion, they can be immediately shared or turned into tasks and projects, and all content becomes fully searchable later with Notion's AI.

Does Notion Meeting Recorder integrate with software like Hubspot, Salesforce, or Linear?

Notion Meeting Recorder does not directly integrate with third-party systems like HubSpot, Salesforce, or Linear out-of-the-box. The focus is on keeping everything within Notion rather than exporting to external software. However, you could potentially route Notion pages with meeting notes to other systems via Notion's API or tools like Zapier, but this isn't a native feature of the meeting recorder itself.

Using Fireflies.ai

Does Fireflies.ai work for in-person meetings?

No – Fireflies.ai is primarily designed for virtual meetings. While users can upload audio files of offline meetings for transcription, it doesn't have a dedicated in-person mode and is designed to join online calls or use browser extensions rather than capture live in-room conversations.

Does Fireflies.ai require a meeting bot to join the meeting?

Typically yes, Fireflies.ai uses a cloud AI notetaker that joins meetings on platforms like Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet to record and transcribe conversations. However, there is a Chrome extension option that can record Google Meet calls without requiring the bot to join.

What do users say about the quality of Fireflies.ai transcriptions?

Users generally report highly accurate transcription and speaker identification. However, there are some limitations - occasional transcription errors occur with overlapping speech or names, accent variance can affect accuracy and may need double-checking, and speaker labeling isn't perfect when multiple people talk over each other.

How does Fireflies.ai help users follow up on action items?

Fireflies.ai automatically generates action items after each call along with AI summaries and topics. It can auto-create tasks from these action items and offers automation features to send notes to CRM systems, Slack, and other tools. Users report that it saves significant time on note-taking and follow-ups by automatically segmenting topics and action items.

Does Fireflies.ai integrate with software like Hubspot, Salesforce, or Linear?

Yes, Fireflies.ai offers 50+ integrations including CRM systems like HubSpot and Salesforce. It also integrates with project management tools through Zapier (which would include Linear), as well as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Docs, Notion, Asana, ClickUp, and storage solutions like Google Drive and Dropbox.

Another alternative: Circleback

Circleback provides best-in-class AI-powered meeting notes and automations. We support over 100 languages and automatic participant identification in both in-person and online meetings.

• Automatically-identified and assigned action items

• AI-enabled search across all meetings

• Automations with 100+ app integrations

• Industry-leading security with SOC 2 Type II, EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, and HIPAA compliance

• Ability to capture both online and in-person meetings with desktop and mobile apps