Screenpipe vs Fireflies.ai in 2026 — Which One Should You Use?
Screenpipe vs Fireflies.ai — Which One Should You Use?
Fireflies.ai is a cloud-based meeting assistant used by millions of teams. It sends a bot to your Zoom, Meet, or Teams call, transcribes the conversation, and generates summaries with action items. It has strong CRM integrations and works well for sales-heavy organizations.
Screenpipe takes a different approach. It captures your entire screen and audio 24/7 on your device, stores everything locally, and lets you search or query any moment from your day. Meetings are included automatically — along with everything else.
Here's how they compare on the facts.
Side-by-Side
| Screenpipe | Fireflies.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| What it captures | Screen text + all audio 24/7 | Meeting audio only |
| Screen recording | ✅ All monitors, all apps | ❌ None |
| Audio | System + mic, always-on | Meeting audio (Zoom, Meet, Teams, Webex) |
| Data storage | 100% local on your device | Cloud (AWS/GCP, US-based) |
| Open source | ✅ MIT license | ❌ Proprietary |
| Works offline | ✅ | ❌ |
| AI model | Any (Claude, GPT, Ollama, local models) | Fireflies built-in AI only |
| Developer API | Full REST API + MCP server | GraphQL API (rate-limited by plan) |
| CRM integration | Via custom pipes | Native Salesforce, HubSpot, Copper |
| Platforms | Mac, Windows, Linux | Mac, Windows, Web, iOS, Android |
| Price | $400 lifetime | $10–29/seat/mo (annual), $18–39 monthly |
What Fireflies Does Well
Fireflies has built a large user base for good reasons:
- Broad meeting platform support — Zoom, Meet, Teams, Webex, GoToMeeting, plus uploaded audio/video files
- 90+ integrations — CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot), Slack, Notion, Asana, Trello, Zapier, and more
- Conversation intelligence — speaker talk-time analytics, sentiment analysis, topic tracking (Business tier)
- AskFred AI — chat with your meeting history to find information across past calls
- Mobile apps — iOS and Android for recording in-person meetings
For sales teams that live in meetings and need CRM auto-sync, Fireflies covers that workflow.
Where Fireflies Falls Short
Meetings Only
Fireflies records scheduled video calls. Everything else in your workday is invisible: Slack threads, code reviews, browser research, emails, documents you read. Meetings represent 10–20% of a typical knowledge worker's day. Fireflies ignores the rest.
No Screen Content
When a colleague shares a dashboard during a call and references specific numbers, Fireflies transcribes "let's look at the Q3 pipeline numbers" without capturing the actual dashboard. URLs dropped in chat, code shown via screen share, slides with dense data — Fireflies misses all visual content because it records audio only.
Bot Joins Visibly
Fireflies sends a bot named "Fireflies Notetaker" that joins the meeting as a participant. Meeting hosts can block it. Some attendees feel uncomfortable when they see a recording bot appear uninvited. Screenpipe captures audio and screen content on your device without joining the call — no bot, no notification to other participants.
Cloud-Only Processing
All recordings and transcripts go to Fireflies' cloud servers (AWS and GCP, US-based). You cannot run it locally or self-host. For teams handling sensitive conversations — legal discussions, HR matters, financial data under NDA — sending everything to a third-party cloud is a constraint worth considering. Enterprise plans offer bring-your-own-storage, but that starts at custom pricing.
AI Credit Caps
Fireflies gates advanced AI features behind credit limits on every plan — even paid ones. The Pro plan at $10/month gets 20 AI credits per seat. Need more? Additional credit packs cost $5–$600/month. This means the sticker price is often lower than the real cost for heavy users.
Per-Seat Pricing Adds Up
A 10-person team on the Business plan ($19/seat/month annual) pays $2,280/year. That covers meeting transcription only — no screen capture, no always-on recording. Screenpipe's $400 lifetime license covers screen, audio, meetings, search, and API access with no per-seat charges.
What Screenpipe Does Differently
Screenpipe captures your screen text via accessibility APIs (with OCR fallback) and audio via local transcription — running continuously in the background.
For meetings:
- Full audio transcript without a bot joining the call
- Screen content captured — shared slides, URLs in chat, documents shown on screen
- Ask the AI afterward: "What did the team decide about the Q4 roadmap in my 2pm call?"
Beyond meetings:
- Search your screen history: "When did I see that error message in the logs?"
- Find a URL or Slack message from three days ago
- Query "What was I working on Friday afternoon?"
- Build custom automations with the developer API
The core difference: Fireflies gives you meeting transcripts. Screenpipe gives you a searchable memory of your full workday.
Privacy Comparison
Fireflies processes everything in their cloud. They hold SOC 2 Type II certification and offer HIPAA compliance on Enterprise plans. But the code is closed — you cannot audit how your data is handled.
Screenpipe processes everything on your machine. The code is open source on GitHub with 16,000+ stars. Your security team can audit every line. Data stays on your device unless you choose to use a cloud AI model.
For teams in regulated industries — healthcare, finance, legal, government — local-first processing is often a compliance requirement.
Pricing Breakdown
| Screenpipe | Fireflies (Business, annual) | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user, 1 year | $400 (lifetime) | $228 |
| 1 user, 2 years | $400 | $456 |
| 10-person team, 1 year | $400 | $2,280 |
| Scope | Screen + audio + meetings + API | Meeting transcription + CRM sync |
For a single user, Screenpipe costs more upfront but breaks even at around 21 months. For teams, the savings are immediate and significant.
When to Choose Fireflies
Fireflies makes sense if:
- Your work centers on meetings and you need native CRM sync (Salesforce, HubSpot)
- You want conversation intelligence — speaker analytics, sentiment scoring, topic tracking
- Mobile recording on iOS/Android matters to your workflow
- You want a large integration library (90+ native connectors)
When to Choose Screenpipe
Screenpipe makes sense if:
- You want to capture your full workday, not only meetings
- Privacy and local data storage matter to your organization
- You need screen content captured alongside audio — slides, documents, code, chat messages
- You want to choose your own AI model (Claude, GPT, Ollama, local models)
- You prefer a one-time payment over per-seat subscriptions
- You use Linux or need cross-platform support
- You want a full API to build custom workflows on your data
Bottom Line
Fireflies is a capable meeting transcription tool with strong integrations and a large user base. If meetings are your core workflow and CRM sync matters, it delivers.
Screenpipe captures everything — meetings included — stores it on your device, and gives you full control. It costs less over time for teams, covers more of your workday, and keeps your data private.
The question is whether you need a meeting tool or a memory layer for your entire digital workflow.
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