tl;dv vs Granola

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.

Evidencetl;dv bot-free recordingtl;dv mobile app

Granola

macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, and Apple Watch

Desktop is the full experience. iOS and Android cover in-person conversations, and Apple Watch can start an in-person note with one tap and sync it to the phone and desktop apps. iPhone also supports outbound speakerphone calls but cannot capture another app’s audio; integrations and several workspace settings remain desktop-oriented.

EvidenceGranola iOSGranola Android launchGranola Apple Watch launchGranola transcription

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.

Evidencetl;dv mobile apptl;dv speaker identification

Granola

Phone, Apple Watch, and laptop room capture

The iPhone app handles in-person conversations, identifies up to ten speakers, and can place outbound speakerphone calls. Android and Apple Watch also capture in-person meetings, though their launch pages do not promise the same speaker-label behavior. Desktop does not diarize individual voices: its transcript uses Me and Them for microphone versus system audio. iPhone cannot transcribe another calling app running on the same phone.

EvidenceGranola iOSGranola Android launchGranola Apple Watch launchGranola transcription

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.

Evidencetl;dv bot-free recordingtl;dv free-plan limits

Granola

No retained audio or video

Granola deliberately deletes audio after transcription. That is a privacy benefit for some teams and a hard limitation for anyone who needs playback, evidence, clips, or coaching review.

EvidenceGranola transcription

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.

Evidencetl;dv pricingtl;dv free-plan limitstl;dv AI prompts

Granola

Concise attendee notes, extracted actions, and cross-meeting chat

Human notes influence the generated document, and paid plans support broad chat across meetings, folders, people, and companies. Our editorial judgment is that the output is polished but thin and assumes the reader attended, rather than documenting enough context to stand alone. Granola can extract owner- and deadline-aware action-item text with transcript citations, but it does not create and assign native tasks to users. Those actions remain note content rather than a workspace task system, and there is still no source recording for playback.

EvidenceGranola transcriptionGranola spaces and foldersGranola action-item extraction

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.

Evidencetl;dv MCP

Granola

People and company pages built from calendar contacts

Granola groups meetings around people and companies, with chat across those groups. Directory entries are inferred from calendar data and cannot be manually added, so imperfect associations can happen.

EvidenceGranola workspacesGranola spaces and folders

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.

Evidencetl;dv team privacy defaults

Granola

Private by default; sharing starts with a note or folder

Notes are not auto-shared with attendees. A user shares a note or adds it to a team-space folder; recurring meetings can auto-add to a folder and new folder notes can auto-post to connected tools. Enterprise can enforce how links work across the workspace, but it still does not provide conditional rules that automatically distribute each matching meeting to the right internal people or teams.

EvidenceGranola workspacesGranola spaces and foldersGranola sharing controlsGranola note sharing

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.

Evidencetl;dv pricingtl;dv Slack workflows

Granola

Folder and manual Zapier triggers; less of a native workflow canvas

Paid users can trigger Zapier when a note is added to a chosen folder or manually shared, then create tasks in Linear, Asana, Trello, Monday, and thousands of other apps. This is useful, but there is no automatic every-meeting trigger in the documented integration and Granola does not center conditional custom extraction and multi-action workflows in the product itself.

EvidenceGranola integrationsGranola spaces and foldersGranola Zapier

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.

Evidencetl;dv pricing

Granola

Notion, Slack, Attio, HubSpot, Affinity, Zapier, API, and MCP

The catalog is now credible, particularly on Business. Zapier can turn folder notes into tasks across 8,000+ apps, while the native catalog remains smaller and more destination-oriented than systems with broad action libraries.

EvidenceGranola integrationsGranola Zapier

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.

Evidencetl;dv MCPtl;dv APItl;dv download limits

Granola

MCP and API on Business+; material export and scope limits

Personal API keys are beta on Business/Enterprise and can return transcripts for notes the key owner may access; Enterprise organization keys can cover Team-space notes. MCP also has a transcript tool, but uses OAuth, has no service-account key, and cannot directly access Team-space folders. Bulk CSV export excludes transcripts and admins cannot export every member’s notes, so programmatic access exists but workspace portability is not complete.

EvidenceGranola MCPGranola APIGranola data export

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.

Evidencetl;dv pricingtl;dv team privacy defaultstl;dv organization and team modeltl;dv permission levels

Granola

User management on Business; retention and organization controls on Enterprise

SSO, retention, enforced sharing/API controls, participant notification, and organization training defaults require Enterprise; Granola documents SSO for organizations with at least 50 seats. There is no native password or MFA system—authentication delegates to Google, Microsoft, or Enterprise SSO. Notes and transcripts persist indefinitely unless deleted or covered by Enterprise retention, and admins do not get a one-click workspace export.

EvidenceGranola pricingGranola subscriptions and billingGranola security and data FAQ

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.

Evidencetl;dv pricingtl;dv bot-free recording

Granola

Multilingual transcription

Granola supports multiple languages, but it does not publish the same 100+ headline count as several rivals. Test switching, accents, and domain vocabulary on real calls.

EvidenceGranola transcription