# tl;dv vs Fireflies: pricing, features, and which is better > tl;dv and Fireflies.ai compared across pricing, capture, speaker labels, recordings, notes, sharing, automations, integrations, AI-agent access, and administration. - Canonical HTML: https://circleback.ai/compare/tldv-vs-fireflies-ai - Structured JSON: https://circleback.ai/compare/tldv-vs-fireflies-ai.json - Comparison directory: https://circleback.ai/compare - Language: en-US - Editorial perspective: Neutral competitor comparison. Circleback appears only as a clearly labeled third option. ## Short answer tl;dv is stronger on clips, recurring reports, and sales playbooks. Fireflies offers more capture paths, live assistance, API depth, and a larger integration catalog. The useful buying test is to run both products on the same external call, internal planning session, and noisy in-person meeting. Compare the result, the sharing defaults, and the work that still has to happen by hand. ## tl;dv at a glance tl;dv combines unlimited meeting recording on its free tier with clips, reels, recurring reports, playbooks, and sales coaching. Its newer bot-free desktop mode broadens capture, but that mode is audio-only and drops video, screen share, and chat. **Best for:** Individuals and customer-facing teams that want a generous free recorder, easy clips, recurring multi-meeting reports, and optional sales playbooks. **Less ideal for:** Teams that need a mature mobile rollout, video in bot-free mode, stable API contracts, durable free-plan retention, or one cross-functional company context layer. **Price:** Free; Pro from $18/user/month annually; Business from $29 annually Free includes unlimited recordings and transcripts, but recordings are retained for three months, older recordings are archived shortly after processing, advanced AI credits are lifetime-limited, and after the first ten meetings generated notes cover only the first ten minutes. Paid prices are per user/month: Pro is $18 with annual billing or $29 month-to-month; Business is $29 or $39. Enterprise is quoted separately. **Free option:** Yes: unlimited recordings and transcripts, with retention, archive, AI-note, credit, duration, and concurrency limits. ### tl;dv strengths - One of the broadest free recording and transcription allowances, despite meaningful retention and AI-output limits. - Strong clips, reels, highlights, multi-meeting reports, playbooks, and sales coaching workflows. - Bot and bot-free macOS/Windows capture now sit beside an early mobile recorder for in-person conversations. - Recurring AI reports and conditional Slack workflows are particularly good at turning many calls into a compact digest with decisions and owner/deadline action lists. ### tl;dv tradeoffs - Bot-free capture is audio-only: no video, screen sharing, or meeting chat is preserved. - The newly documented mobile recorder is still described as an early-stage testing experience rather than a mature production path. - Free recordings are retained for three months and quickly archived; after the first ten meetings, generated notes cover only the first ten minutes. - The public API is labeled v1alpha1, and MCP searches typically return at most 50 meetings per query. - There is no bulk meeting export in the product. Individual recording downloads require both owner and downloader to be on a paid plan, plus editor or admin access. - The domain-level Organization is automatic rather than a governed tenant: any same-domain user can join it and the Organization itself cannot be deleted. Paid Teams provide the actual admin hierarchy. - Several advanced AI, sales, and multilingual capabilities are reserved for higher plans. - tl;dv can extract assigned action lists and send them elsewhere, but it does not document a native workspace-wide task system with assignee queues, status, due dates, and completion tracking. ### Choose tl;dv when - Unlimited free recording matters more than unlimited AI notes. - Your workflow revolves around clips, playlists, sales playbooks, and recurring topic reports. - You are comfortable using a bot when video, screen share, and chat need to be retained. ## Fireflies.ai at a glance Fireflies is one of the broadest meeting assistants: bot, desktop, mobile, integrations, search, API, and live or sales assistance. The nuanced bit is that its capture modes are not equivalent—bot-free desktop gives up recordings, named speakers, and Sales Assist. **Best for:** Teams that prioritize a large integration catalog, live assistance, sales workflows, flexible bot/desktop/mobile capture, and competitive pricing. **Less ideal for:** Teams that expect bot-free capture to preserve the same media, speaker fidelity, and sales intelligence as the bot experience. **Price:** Free; Pro from $10/user/month annually Prices are per user/month: Pro is $10 with annual billing or $18 month-to-month; Business is $19 or $29; Enterprise is $39 with annual billing. Storage, AI credits, video, advanced integrations, and governance differ by plan. **Free option:** Yes. Unlimited transcription requires both Auto-join and Share-all; otherwise initial transcription credits, storage limits, and plan-gated summaries or AI features apply. ### Fireflies.ai strengths - Bot, bot-free macOS/Windows, iOS/Android, uploads, and supported native meeting SDK paths. - A large integration catalog, public API, webhooks, remote MCP, AI apps, live assistance, and Sales Assist. - Automatically generated and assigned action items live in a team-wide task feed and can flow into tools such as Linear, Asana, Monday.com, and Microsoft Planner. - Competitive pricing and 100+ language claims make it accessible to distributed teams. - Meeting content is not used to train internal or external AI models, and compliance modes can retain the full record, text only, summary only, or summary plus audio. ### Fireflies.ai tradeoffs - Bot-free desktop mode stores no audio/video, labels speakers generically, and cannot run Sales Assist. - Fireflies says mobile recordings often do not auto-detect speakers, so in-person transcripts may need manual speaker relabeling. - The Google Meet SDK bot-free path asks attendees for approval, so “bot-free” does not always mean invisible or frictionless. - The advertised unlimited free transcription is conditional: users must enable both automatic bot joining and automatic sharing with every participant. Teams choosing tighter defaults fall back to a small transcription-credit allowance. - Meeting recaps default to workspace-wide access plus anyone with the link. Admins can enforce safer defaults and Enterprise rules can protect sensitive categories, but teams should configure this before broad rollout. - Two current Fireflies help articles disagree on whether Free includes 400 or 800 stored minutes, so confirm the live limit before relying on long-term free storage. - Advanced AI features use workspace-pooled credits that do not increase with seat count, so heavier teams may need a paid credit add-on. - The GraphQL API exposes transcripts and core meeting data but not Super Summaries or Custom Apps output. - The MCP server is much richer than the older API-only story, but some advanced search and fetch tools are still marked experimental, and data sent to an external AI no longer receives Fireflies’ zero-data-retention guarantee. - Company relationship context and general-purpose native automations are less cohesive than the sheer integration count suggests. ### Choose Fireflies.ai when - A large integration catalog and live assistance are high priorities. - You are happy to use the Fireflies bot when you need recordings, named speakers, and Sales Assist. - You want mobile and desktop capture at a lower entry price than many competitors. ## Feature comparison | What matters | tl;dv | Fireflies.ai | | --- | --- | --- | | Capture options | Broad support — Meeting bot or bot-free desktop recording. macOS and Windows can capture system audio from any meeting platform without a bot. The bot remains the richer mode for supported conferencing platforms. | Broad support — Bot, bot-free desktop, mobile, and SDK-based capture. Fireflies has unusually broad capture. The modes differ: desktop bot-free capture works across apps but drops stored media and named speaker labels; the bot preserves the richer meeting record. | | Desktop and mobile | Available with limits — Web, Chrome, macOS, Windows, and an early mobile app. Desktop capture is broad. tl;dv now documents a mobile app for in-person meetings, but describes it as recently launched, early-stage, and available for testing. | Broad support — 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. | | In-person capture and speaker labels | Available with limits — Desktop microphone or early-stage mobile recording. A laptop can capture room audio and the newer mobile app can record in-person meetings. tl;dv documents speaker identification generally but does not explain whether the early mobile path preserves the same naming behavior, so test it before a broad rollout. There is no documented Watch capture. | Broad support — 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. | | Recordings, playback, and clips | Broad support — Rich playback, clips, and reels—with a botless video caveat. Bot recordings support video, transcript, clips, reels, and shareable moments. Bot-free recordings are audio-only and omit video, screen sharing, and chat. | Available with limits — 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. | | Notes, action items, and search | Broad support — AI notes, action digests, multi-meeting reports, and topic tracking. The product is particularly good at synthesizing multiple meetings and turning recurring prompts into reports, including action lists grouped by person and date. Those are report or checklist outputs rather than a native task lifecycle with workspace queues and completion state. Free accounts get a limited number of AI notes. | Broad support — 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. | | People, companies, and context | Available with limits — Meeting library and multi-meeting synthesis. tl;dv can query and report across accessible meetings, but it does not present a broader email/calendar/person/company relationship memory as its core model. | Available with limits — 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. | | Automatic sharing and workspace defaults | Broad support — Granular team privacy defaults and automatic sharing. Teams can automatically share with participants, publish to a team or organization library, and apply admin privacy rules using meeting context such as title, internal or external type, and team role. Sensitive categories can remain private by rule. | Broad support — 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. | | Automations | Broad support — Recurring AI reports and sales workflows. Automated multi-meeting reports, playbooks, CRM updates, and conditional Slack posts are useful, especially for customer-facing teams. Slack workflows can format decisions and action items with owners and deadlines, but team workflow scope excludes team admins and billing-group admins, and the overall system is less open-ended than a general meeting condition/action builder. | Broad support — 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. | | Integrations | Available with limits — CRM and collaboration integrations on paid plans. tl;dv connects to common CRMs and work tools; exact access varies by plan. The catalog is oriented around GTM and collaboration workflows. | Broad support — 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. | | API, MCP, CLI, and data portability | Available with limits — MCP on Pro+ and a public alpha API. MCP can search meetings and participants, with typical result sets capped at 50. A subtle access rule matters: viewing a shared meeting is not enough if its organizer is on Free—the organizer must have Pro or higher before that meeting is available through MCP or the API. The API is documented as v1alpha1 and includes recording downloads, so integration teams should expect contract evolution. | Broad support — 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. | | Security, privacy, and admin | Available with limits — Paid Team controls, with a looser domain Organization layer. Paid Teams add roles, billing administration, and forward-looking defaults; team settings do not override Team Admins. The separate domain-based Organization has no organization-wide admin defaults, any same-domain user can join it, and it cannot be deleted. Multi-team management is Business-only. | Broad support — 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. | | Languages | Available with limits — Multilingual transcription; advanced multilingual mode is plan-gated. Language selection behavior varies by capture mode, and the multilingual Whisper option is documented for Business and Enterprise. | Broad support — 100+ languages advertised. Fireflies advertises broad transcription coverage. Real-world speaker separation and accuracy still depend on capture mode, room acoustics, accents, and vocabulary. | Ratings describe documented breadth rather than overall product quality: - **Broad support:** Broad native support across the product or relevant paid plans. - **Available with limits:** Documented support with meaningful scope, mode, or plan limits. - **Narrow or indirect:** Narrow, indirect, beta, or substantially plan-gated support. - **Not documented:** No current first-party documentation for a native option. ## Detailed analysis ### Capture options **Both products document broad support for capture options, with different scope and plan limits.** **tl;dv:** Meeting bot or bot-free desktop recording. macOS and Windows can capture system audio from any meeting platform without a bot. The bot remains the richer mode for supported conferencing platforms. Evidence: [tl;dv bot-free recording](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/14433337-recording-without-a-bot). **Fireflies.ai:** Bot, bot-free desktop, mobile, and SDK-based capture. Fireflies has unusually broad capture. The modes differ: desktop bot-free capture works across apps but drops stored media and named speaker labels; the bot preserves the richer meeting record. Evidence: [Fireflies bot-free desktop recording](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/6666374717-how-to-record-meetings-without-a-bot-on-the-fireflies-desktop-app), [Fireflies desktop app](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/1208704416-getting-started-with-the-fireflies-desktop-app). ### Desktop and mobile **Fireflies has broader documented support for desktop and mobile.** **tl;dv:** Web, Chrome, macOS, Windows, and an early mobile app. Desktop capture is broad. tl;dv now documents a mobile app for in-person meetings, but describes it as recently launched, early-stage, and available for testing. Evidence: [tl;dv bot-free recording](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/14433337-recording-without-a-bot), [tl;dv mobile app](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/8490450-mobile-app). **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. Evidence: [Fireflies desktop app](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/1208704416-getting-started-with-the-fireflies-desktop-app), [Fireflies mobile app](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/8937818258-learn-about-fireflies-mobile-app). ### In-person capture and speaker labels **Fireflies has broader documented support for in-person capture and speaker labels.** **tl;dv:** Desktop microphone or early-stage mobile recording. A laptop can capture room audio and the newer mobile app can record in-person meetings. tl;dv documents speaker identification generally but does not explain whether the early mobile path preserves the same naming behavior, so test it before a broad rollout. There is no documented Watch capture. Evidence: [tl;dv mobile app](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/8490450-mobile-app), [tl;dv speaker identification](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/6171907-speaker-identification-in-transcript). **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. Evidence: [Fireflies mobile app](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/8937818258-learn-about-fireflies-mobile-app), [Fireflies speaker labels](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/4994477228-how-to-edit-speaker-labels-or-names-in-a-transcript). ### Recordings, playback, and clips **tl;dv has broader documented support for recordings, playback, and clips.** **tl;dv:** Rich playback, clips, and reels—with a botless video caveat. Bot recordings support video, transcript, clips, reels, and shareable moments. Bot-free recordings are audio-only and omit video, screen sharing, and chat. Evidence: [tl;dv bot-free recording](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/14433337-recording-without-a-bot), [tl;dv free-plan limits](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/8919450-what-are-the-limits-of-the-free-plan). **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. Evidence: [Fireflies bot-free desktop recording](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/6666374717-how-to-record-meetings-without-a-bot-on-the-fireflies-desktop-app). ### Notes, action items, and search **Both products document broad support for notes, action items, and search, with different scope and plan limits.** **tl;dv:** AI notes, action digests, multi-meeting reports, and topic tracking. The product is particularly good at synthesizing multiple meetings and turning recurring prompts into reports, including action lists grouped by person and date. Those are report or checklist outputs rather than a native task lifecycle with workspace queues and completion state. Free accounts get a limited number of AI notes. Evidence: [tl;dv pricing](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/6082483-what-is-tl-dv-s-pricing), [tl;dv free-plan limits](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/8919450-what-are-the-limits-of-the-free-plan), [tl;dv AI prompts](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/9235713-ai-prompts-inspiration). **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. Evidence: [Fireflies pricing guide](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/3734844560-learn-about-the-fireflies-pricing-plans), [Fireflies AI credits](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/9606045468-fireflies-billing-terms), [Fireflies Tasks Feed](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/1574234155-learn-about-the-tasks-feed). ### People, companies, and context **Both products support people, companies, and context, with different scope and plan limits.** **tl;dv:** Meeting library and multi-meeting synthesis. tl;dv can query and report across accessible meetings, but it does not present a broader email/calendar/person/company relationship memory as its core model. Evidence: [tl;dv MCP](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/15322415-mcp). **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. Evidence: [Fireflies pricing guide](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/3734844560-learn-about-the-fireflies-pricing-plans). ### Automatic sharing and workspace defaults **Both products document broad support for automatic sharing and workspace defaults, with different scope and plan limits.** **tl;dv:** Granular team privacy defaults and automatic sharing. Teams can automatically share with participants, publish to a team or organization library, and apply admin privacy rules using meeting context such as title, internal or external type, and team role. Sensitive categories can remain private by rule. Evidence: [tl;dv team privacy defaults](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/15033798-team-privacy-defaults). **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. Evidence: [Fireflies Rules Engine](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/4608292950-learn-about-the-rules-engine-feature), [Fireflies recap privacy defaults](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/5319481450-how-to-configure-privacy-settings-for-your-meeting-recaps). ### Automations **Both products document broad support for automations, with different scope and plan limits.** **tl;dv:** Recurring AI reports and sales workflows. Automated multi-meeting reports, playbooks, CRM updates, and conditional Slack posts are useful, especially for customer-facing teams. Slack workflows can format decisions and action items with owners and deadlines, but team workflow scope excludes team admins and billing-group admins, and the overall system is less open-ended than a general meeting condition/action builder. Evidence: [tl;dv pricing](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/6082483-what-is-tl-dv-s-pricing), [tl;dv Slack workflows](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/5946410-set-up-the-slack-integration). **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. Evidence: [Fireflies Rules Engine](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/4608292950-learn-about-the-rules-engine-feature), [Fireflies pricing guide](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/3734844560-learn-about-the-fireflies-pricing-plans), [Fireflies Tasks Feed](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/1574234155-learn-about-the-tasks-feed), [Fireflies Linear integration](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/8360629677-how-to-integrate-linear-with-fireflies). ### Integrations **Fireflies has broader documented support for integrations.** **tl;dv:** CRM and collaboration integrations on paid plans. tl;dv connects to common CRMs and work tools; exact access varies by plan. The catalog is oriented around GTM and collaboration workflows. Evidence: [tl;dv pricing](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/6082483-what-is-tl-dv-s-pricing). **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. Evidence: [Fireflies integration directory](https://fireflies.ai/integrations), [Fireflies Linear integration](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/8360629677-how-to-integrate-linear-with-fireflies). ### API, MCP, CLI, and data portability **Fireflies has broader documented support for API, MCP, CLI, and data portability.** **tl;dv:** MCP on Pro+ and a public alpha API. MCP can search meetings and participants, with typical result sets capped at 50. A subtle access rule matters: viewing a shared meeting is not enough if its organizer is on Free—the organizer must have Pro or higher before that meeting is available through MCP or the API. The API is documented as v1alpha1 and includes recording downloads, so integration teams should expect contract evolution. Evidence: [tl;dv MCP](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/15322415-mcp), [tl;dv API](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/11583137-api), [tl;dv download limits](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/5946213-how-to-download-your-recording). **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. Evidence: [Fireflies API](https://docs.fireflies.ai/introduction), [Fireflies MCP tools](https://docs.fireflies.ai/mcp-tools/overview). ### Security, privacy, and admin **Fireflies has broader documented support for security, privacy, and admin.** **tl;dv:** Paid Team controls, with a looser domain Organization layer. Paid Teams add roles, billing administration, and forward-looking defaults; team settings do not override Team Admins. The separate domain-based Organization has no organization-wide admin defaults, any same-domain user can join it, and it cannot be deleted. Multi-team management is Business-only. Evidence: [tl;dv pricing](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/6082483-what-is-tl-dv-s-pricing), [tl;dv team privacy defaults](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/15033798-team-privacy-defaults), [tl;dv organization and team model](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/8975481-organization-vs-team-what-s-the-difference), [tl;dv permission levels](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/10131073-understanding-permission-levels). **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. Evidence: [Fireflies pricing guide](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/3734844560-learn-about-the-fireflies-pricing-plans), [Fireflies storage limits](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/4777633252-learn-about-meeting-storage-limits), [Fireflies Rules Engine](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/4608292950-learn-about-the-rules-engine-feature), [Fireflies data safety](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/2154538358-policy-on-keeping-information-safe), [Fireflies compliance recording modes](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/3598930706-set-up-transcript-only-mode-for-compliance), [Fireflies Enterprise controls](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/4771323041-learn-about-fireflies-enterprise-plan). ### Languages **Fireflies has broader documented support for languages.** **tl;dv:** Multilingual transcription; advanced multilingual mode is plan-gated. Language selection behavior varies by capture mode, and the multilingual Whisper option is documented for Business and Enterprise. Evidence: [tl;dv pricing](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/6082483-what-is-tl-dv-s-pricing), [tl;dv bot-free recording](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/14433337-recording-without-a-bot). **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. Evidence: [Fireflies pricing guide](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/3734844560-learn-about-the-fireflies-pricing-plans). ## A third option to consider: Circleback Circleback turns online meetings, in-person conversations, and imported calls into one shared company memory. Record with a bot, with the botless desktop app, from an iPhone or Android phone, or on Apple Watch. Every route produces the same speaker-labeled record, detailed notes designed to stand alone, and automatically assigned action items. Sharing rules and automations carry the useful parts into the teams and tools that need them. Circleback is built for people and AI agents: the complete meeting record available to a person is also available programmatically through its API, MCP, and CLI. Circleback can also search connected apps and take action in them. It is built for people and AI agents: the same complete meeting data available to a person is available programmatically to ChatGPT, Claude, other agents, and internal tools through the API, MCP, and CLI. Free; Pro from $15/user/month annually; Business from $25/user/month annually; Enterprise $35/user/month, billed annually. ## Frequently asked questions ### Which is better: tl;dv or Fireflies.ai? tl;dv is stronger on clips, recurring reports, and sales playbooks. Fireflies offers more capture paths, live assistance, API depth, and a larger integration catalog. ### Which is less expensive, tl;dv or Fireflies.ai? tl;dv: Free; Pro from $18/user/month annually; Business from $29 annually. Fireflies.ai: Free; Pro from $10/user/month annually. Compare the paid seats, included usage, recording access, and admin features you actually need. ### Can tl;dv and Fireflies.ai record without a bot? tl;dv: Meeting bot or bot-free desktop recording. Fireflies.ai: Bot, bot-free desktop, mobile, and SDK-based capture. The useful check is whether your required capture mode keeps video, a recording, and speaker names. ### Which is better for a whole company? First ask who gets each note automatically; otherwise useful context stays with the recorder. Then compare permissions, retention, and enforced defaults. tl;dv: Granular team privacy defaults and automatic sharing. Fireflies: Enterprise rules can auto-route, share, and enforce privacy. ### Can I access and move the full meeting data? tl;dv: MCP on Pro+ and a public alpha API. Fireflies: GraphQL API, webhooks, and a rich remote MCP server. Check the selected plan, authentication model, transcript scope, export format, and retention window for the workflow you need. ### How was this comparison researched? We use first-party pricing pages, product pages, help docs, and release notes for both products. The sources are linked below. ## Methodology Circleback reviews first-party pricing pages, product pages, help docs, and release notes. Prices and capabilities move, so check the linked sources when a detail is important to your decision. Every feature dimension links to the exact first-party documents used for that claim. Ratings describe documented breadth, not an overall score or winner. This page is a neutral competitor-to-competitor comparison. There are no paid placements or affiliate rankings. ## First-party sources ### tl;dv sources - [tl;dv pricing](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/6082483-what-is-tl-dv-s-pricing): Official Free, Pro, Business, and Enterprise pricing and plan scope. - [tl;dv free-plan limits](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/8919450-what-are-the-limits-of-the-free-plan): Recording retention, archive behavior, AI-note coverage, lifetime credits, meeting duration, and concurrency. - [tl;dv mobile app](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/8490450-mobile-app): Recently launched early-stage mobile recording for in-person meetings. - [tl;dv speaker identification](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/6171907-speaker-identification-in-transcript): General automatic speaker identification; the article does not document mobile-mode parity. - [tl;dv bot-free recording](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/14433337-recording-without-a-bot): Desktop capture and the audio-only limitation. - [tl;dv MCP](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/15322415-mcp): Plan eligibility, tools, access model, and result behavior. - [tl;dv API](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/11583137-api): Pro/Business eligibility and v1alpha1 status. - [tl;dv team privacy defaults](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/15033798-team-privacy-defaults): Admin-controlled automatic sharing, workspace-library publishing, and privacy rules for sensitive meetings. - [tl;dv download limits](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/5946213-how-to-download-your-recording): No bulk export plus paid-plan, ownership, and permission requirements for individual recording downloads. - [tl;dv organization and team model](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/8975481-organization-vs-team-what-s-the-difference): Automatic same-domain Organization membership, absence of Organization-wide admin defaults, and the paid Team hierarchy. - [tl;dv permission levels](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/10131073-understanding-permission-levels): Team roles, admin behavior, and the non-deletable domain Organization. - [tl;dv AI prompts](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/9235713-ai-prompts-inspiration): Cross-meeting action-item reports grouped by participant and date plus common analysis workflows. - [tl;dv Slack workflows](https://intercom.help/tldv/en/articles/5946410-set-up-the-slack-integration): Conditional automatic summaries, decisions, and owner/deadline action lists plus the team-admin scope exception. ### Fireflies.ai sources - [Fireflies pricing guide](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/3734844560-learn-about-the-fireflies-pricing-plans): July 2026 prices and plan structure. - [Fireflies unlimited free transcripts](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/8632872350-how-to-get-unlimited-meeting-transcripts-on-fireflies-ai-s-free-plan): Auto-join and Share-all requirements for unlimited free transcription. - [Fireflies storage limits](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/4777633252-learn-about-meeting-storage-limits): Current storage limits by plan; its Free figure conflicts with an older Free-plan article. - [Fireflies bot-free desktop recording](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/6666374717-how-to-record-meetings-without-a-bot-on-the-fireflies-desktop-app): No AV files, generic speakers, and Sales Assist limitation. - [Fireflies desktop app](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/1208704416-getting-started-with-the-fireflies-desktop-app): Capture modes, Live Assist, and bot versus botless behavior. - [Fireflies mobile app](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/8937818258-learn-about-fireflies-mobile-app): iOS/Android in-person recording, search, sharing, and tasks. - [Fireflies speaker labels](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/4994477228-how-to-edit-speaker-labels-or-names-in-a-transcript): Manual corrections and the mobile-recording speaker-detection caveat. - [Fireflies API](https://docs.fireflies.ai/introduction): GraphQL authentication, user/admin scope, available meeting data, and current Super Summary/Custom Apps gaps. - [Fireflies MCP tools](https://docs.fireflies.ai/mcp-tools/overview): Remote MCP authentication, full meeting-data access, read/write tools, and experimental-tool status. - [Fireflies AI credits](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/9606045468-fireflies-billing-terms): Workspace-pooled credit allowances, non-seat scaling, and add-on behavior. - [Fireflies Tasks Feed](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/1574234155-learn-about-the-tasks-feed): Automatic task generation and assignment, all-team task views, completion, reassignment, and project-tool handoff. - [Fireflies Linear integration](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/8360629677-how-to-integrate-linear-with-fireflies): Automatic issue creation, project and status routing, assigned-task filtering, and meeting-rule conditions. - [Fireflies integration directory](https://fireflies.ai/integrations): Current first-party directory advertising 100+ integrations across CRM, project, collaboration, storage, and other categories. - [Fireflies Rules Engine](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/4608292950-learn-about-the-rules-engine-feature): Enterprise conditions and actions for routing, automatic sharing, privacy enforcement, and deletion. - [Fireflies recap privacy defaults](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/5319481450-how-to-configure-privacy-settings-for-your-meeting-recaps): Default teammates-and-link visibility, narrower audience choices, and retroactive privacy changes. - [Fireflies data safety](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/2154538358-policy-on-keeping-information-safe): No-training and third-party zero-retention commitments plus governance controls. - [Fireflies compliance recording modes](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/3598930706-set-up-transcript-only-mode-for-compliance): Full-record, text-only, summary-only, and summary-plus-audio retention modes. - [Fireflies Enterprise controls](https://guide.fireflies.ai/articles/4771323041-learn-about-fireflies-enterprise-plan): SSO, SCIM, private storage, retention, and Super Admin access behavior.