Alternatives/Meetily·Open source

Best Meetily Alternatives in 2026

Meetily transcribes meetings locally under an MIT licence. Seven alternatives compared on what they cost you in setup, what they cover beyond meeting audio, and whether the processing is still local.

Download LUCI, freeLUCI vs Meetily →
CategoryOpen source
Tools compared7
Platforms coveredMac · Windows · Linux
01 — Context

Why people look past Meetily

Meetily earned its 22,000+ GitHub stars. It is MIT-licensed, bot-free, transcribes on your own machine with Whisper- or Parakeet-class models, and the community edition is free and uncapped. If your requirement is that you can read the code that handles your audio, nothing on this page beats it.

People move for one of three reasons. The first is assembly: Mac and Windows have installers, but Linux and self-hosting mean building from source, and summaries expect you to run Ollama locally or supply your own API key. That is a fair trade for an open-source project and a real cost if you just want notes.

The second is scope. Meetily is meeting audio only, and it produces notes per meeting rather than a memory that accumulates. Ask "what did this customer push back on across our last three calls" and you are opening three files.

The third is everything around the meeting. If the context you actually need is in the PR you reviewed, the dashboard you checked, or the deck someone shared, an audio notetaker will never see it — and there is no interface for your coding agents to query what it did capture.

02 — Criteria

What to compare when you are leaving an open-source notetaker

You already believe in local processing, so price and bot behaviour are not the deciding axes. These four are.

Q1

Does it stay local, or is "local" only the capture?

Several tools people suggest as Meetily replacements are bot-free but cloud-processed: Granola passes audio to a cloud transcription provider with transcripts on US-hosted AWS, Jamie processes in Frankfurt and via the OpenAI API. If you picked Meetily for on-device processing, that is a downgrade dressed up as a sidegrade. The falsifiable test is the same one Meetily passes: unplug the network and see whether it still works.

Q2

How much assembly does it need?

Meetily's cost is setup — a toolchain for Linux or self-hosting, and Ollama or an API key for summaries. Some alternatives ship the whole thing in a signed installer with the on-device models included; others push more of the work back onto you. Decide honestly how much of that you enjoy.

Q3

Meeting notes, or memory that accumulates?

Per-meeting notes and a memory that spans weeks are different products. If your real question is usually "what did we decide about this over the last month", files-per-meeting will keep failing you no matter how good the transcription is.

Q4

Can your agents reach it?

In 2026 the useful question is whether Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor can query the record themselves over MCP. Meetily has no MCP interface, and neither do most of the cloud notetakers — it is the capability that separates a notes app from context your tools fetch on their own.

03 — Side by side

Meetily alternatives compared

Licensing, capability, and pricing details reflect each vendor's own public documentation and pricing pages as of August 2026. Vendors change tiers frequently — check before you commit.

ToolCaptureProcessingPlatformsPriceBest for
LUCIOur pickScreen + audio, bot-free100% on-device, encrypted at restMac & WindowsFree (sessions up to 4 h)Best for keeping Meetily’s local processing while adding screen memory and agent access
anarlog (formerly Hyprnote)RebrandedBot-free, audio onlyOn-device STTMac (Apple Silicon) promoted; Windows partialFree with your own API keys; Pro $15/moBest for staying open source with notes as plain Markdown files you own
Screenpipe24/7 screen capture + audioOn-deviceMac, Windows, LinuxFree tier; $21/mo or $250/yr (Sept 2026)Best for developers who want a local capture pipeline to build on, with Linux support
GranolaBot-free meeting capture — no screenCloud transcription, US-hosted AWSMac & WindowsFree tier; $14–$35/user/moBest for the most polished notes if you are willing to give up local processing
JamieBot-free, audio onlyCloud — Frankfurt servers + OpenAI APIDesktop + iOS/AndroidFree (10 mtgs/mo, 30 min); Pro €39/moBest if your real constraint is EU data residency rather than on-device processing
OtterOtterPilot bot joins the callCloud (AWS S3)Web, desktop, mobileFree (300 min/mo); Pro ~$8.33–$16.99Best for teams who need mature admin tooling and do not mind a visible bot
TwinMindBot-free, always-on ambient listeningPartly cloud — flagship Ear-3 model is cloud-basediOS/Android strong; Windows waitlist onlyFree; Pro $15/mo; Max $30/moBest for capturing in-person conversations from your phone
04 — In detail

Every option, in detail

LUCI

Our pick

Best for keeping Meetily’s local processing while adding screen memory and agent access

Capture
Screen + audio, bot-free
Processing
100% on-device, encrypted at rest
Platforms
Mac & Windows
Price
Free (sessions up to 4 h)
Maintenance
Actively developed and shipping; your memory lives on your own disk

LUCI keeps the two things you chose Meetily for — bot-free capture and processing that happens on your own device — and removes the assembly. One signed installer, on-device models included, no Ollama to run and no API key to supply. Transcription, summaries, and search all work with the network unplugged, and the record is encrypted at rest on your own disk.

What it adds is scope. It captures your screen alongside meetings and folds both into one memory that spans weeks, so cross-call questions get one cited answer instead of three files. And the Agent Bridge opens that memory to the agents you already use — Claude, Cursor, Codex — which Meetily has no interface for. The honest trade: LUCI is closed-source, so you cannot audit it the way you can audit Meetily. Its privacy claims are verifiable by behaviour instead of by reading the code.

LUCI vs MeetilyAI meeting notes

anarlog (formerly Hyprnote)

Rebranded

Best for staying open source with notes as plain Markdown files you own

Capture
Bot-free, audio only
Processing
On-device STT
Platforms
Mac (Apple Silicon) promoted; Windows partial
Price
Free with your own API keys; Pro $15/mo

The closest like-for-like swap: MIT-licensed, bot-free, transcribing on-device, with notes stored as plain Markdown you can grep, back up, and keep after you stop paying anyone. If you are leaving Meetily over polish rather than principle, this is the shortest move.

Two things to weigh. The brand split in 2026 — the open-source project was renamed anarlog while hyprnote.com became char.com, a cloud product from the same team, so check which one you are installing. And Windows support lags Mac, with summaries still needing your own API key or an on-device model unless you take the hosted Pro tier. Like Meetily, it is meeting audio only.

LUCI vs Hyprnote

Screenpipe

Best for developers who want a local capture pipeline to build on, with Linux support

Capture
24/7 screen capture + audio
Processing
On-device
Platforms
Mac, Windows, Linux
Price
Free tier; $21/mo or $250/yr (Sept 2026)
Maintenance
DIY — you run and maintain the stack yourself

If what you want from Meetily is the hacker ergonomics rather than the meeting notes, Screenpipe is the natural step sideways: source-available, continuous local screen capture with OCR and text search, scriptable through community "pipes", and genuinely cross-platform including Linux.

It is a lower-level product than Meetily, not a higher-level one. You get a capture pipeline and text search rather than meeting summaries, there is no memory layer that accumulates across your work, no MCP interface for agents, and as of September 2026 it is a $21-a-month subscription (the old $400 lifetime licence is gone) rather than free. You are buying raw material.

LUCI vs ScreenpipeScreenpipe alternatives

Granola

Best for the most polished notes if you are willing to give up local processing

Capture
Bot-free meeting capture — no screen
Processing
Cloud transcription, US-hosted AWS
Platforms
Mac & Windows
Price
Free tier; $14–$35/user/mo

Granola is the polish upgrade: clean notes, good templates, bot-free capture, and after a March 2026 Series C ($125M at a $1.5B valuation) a push toward an enterprise "context layer". If Meetily's summaries were the thing that frustrated you, this is the obvious commercial answer.

It is also the biggest departure from why you picked Meetily. Per Granola's own transcription documentation, audio from your microphone and system audio is passed to a cloud transcription provider and transcripts are stored on US-hosted AWS; non-Enterprise accounts train its models on anonymized data unless you opt out, and it states it cannot sign BAAs. Its desktop app also has no live speaker diarization — speech is labelled "Me" or "Them" — which Meetily does do locally.

LUCI vs GranolaGranola alternatives

Jamie

Best if your real constraint is EU data residency rather than on-device processing

Capture
Bot-free, audio only
Processing
Cloud — Frankfurt servers + OpenAI API
Platforms
Desktop + iOS/Android
Price
Free (10 mtgs/mo, 30 min); Pro €39/mo

Jamie is bot-free with servers in Frankfurt and proper mobile apps, which most local-first tools lack entirely. For a European team whose compliance question is "which jurisdiction" rather than "whose machine", it answers cleanly.

It is still cloud. Audio is processed off your machine, partly via the OpenAI API, transcripts are retained on the EU server, and it needs a connection — so it fails the unplug test Meetily passes. Meetings are capped at 30 minutes on free, 2 hours on Plus, and 3 hours on Pro, and notes arrive after processing rather than live.

LUCI vs Jamie

Otter

Best for teams who need mature admin tooling and do not mind a visible bot

Capture
OtterPilot bot joins the call
Processing
Cloud (AWS S3)
Platforms
Web, desktop, mobile
Price
Free (300 min/mo); Pro ~$8.33–$16.99

Going from Meetily to Otter reverses both of Meetily's defining choices — a bot joins the call and the conversation lives in Otter's cloud — in exchange for years of transcription tuning, broad integrations, and enterprise admin tooling that no open-source notetaker matches.

The fine print: conversations are stored in Otter's cloud on AWS, the free tier is 300 minutes a month with a 30-minute ceiling per conversation, roughly six transcription languages are supported with one per session, and a HIPAA BAA is Enterprise-only. A pending federal class action alleges Otter recorded participants who never consented; Otter denies the claims and there has been no ruling.

LUCI vs OtterOtter alternatives

TwinMind

Best for capturing in-person conversations from your phone

Capture
Bot-free, always-on ambient listening
Processing
Partly cloud — flagship Ear-3 model is cloud-based
Platforms
iOS/Android strong; Windows waitlist only
Price
Free; Pro $15/mo; Max $30/mo

Meetily is a desktop product, so if the meetings you keep missing are the ones that happen away from your laptop, none of the other options here help. TwinMind listens ambiently from a phone and is the strongest mobile-first tool on this list.

The trade is the one Meetily exists to avoid: its flagship Ear-3 model is cloud-based, so the audio leaves the device, and speaker identification sits on paid tiers with cloud models. Desktop coverage is thin — Windows is waitlist only.

LUCI vs TwinMind
05 — Decision

Which one, given why you are leaving

You want Meetily’s local processing without the setup, plus screen memory

LUCI

Open source is non-negotiable and you want notes as plain files

anarlog (formerly Hyprnote)

You want a local capture pipeline to build on, and you need Linux

Screenpipe

You want the most polished notes and cloud processing is acceptable

Granola

Your constraint is EU data residency, not on-device processing

Jamie

Most of your conversations happen in person, on your phone

TwinMind

06 — FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Is Meetily still maintained?

Yes — Meetily is an actively developed MIT-licensed project with a free, uncapped community edition and a $10/user/month (billed annually) Pro tier for advanced summaries and team features. Nothing on this page is a rescue from a shutdown; the reasons to look elsewhere are scope and setup, not abandonment.

Which Meetily alternatives are also open source?

anarlog (formerly Hyprnote) is MIT-licensed and transcribes on-device, and Screenpipe is source-available for local screen capture. LUCI is closed-source commercial software, so its privacy claims rest on behaviour you can test — capture and search keep working with the network unplugged — rather than on code you can read.

Which alternatives still process everything on my own machine?

LUCI, anarlog, and Screenpipe all process locally. Granola and Jamie are bot-free but cloud-processed, and Otter and TwinMind send audio off the device as well. If on-device processing is why you chose Meetily, that narrows the list to three.

Does anything replace Meetily without needing Ollama or an API key?

LUCI ships on-device models in one signed installer for Mac and Windows, so summaries work with no separate runtime and no key. anarlog needs your own API key or an on-device model unless you take its hosted Pro tier, and Granola and Jamie do their processing in the cloud so there is nothing for you to run.

Can I keep my Meetily transcripts if I switch?

Yes — Meetily stores transcripts and summaries locally, so copy or export the ones you want before uninstalling. LUCI imports exported transcripts as searchable memory; check what any other replacement accepts, since support for importing history varies.

Do any of these capture my screen as well as my meetings?

LUCI and Screenpipe do; Meetily, anarlog, Granola, Jamie, Otter, and TwinMind are meeting or conversation audio only. That is usually the deciding question if the context you keep needing lives in documents and dashboards rather than in what was said out loud.

LUCI vs MeetilyFix: Meetily local setupWhat is speaker diarization?No-bot AI notetakerAI meeting notesAll comparisons
Switching from Meetily?

Meetings and screen, remembered on your own machine.

Free on Mac and Windows. No bot in the call. Your agents can read it.

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