The meeting transcription space has exploded. There are now dozens of tools that claim to replace Fireflies.ai — bot-based, bot-free, real-time, upload-based, cheap, expensive, and everything in between.
Most comparison posts list every feature from every tool and leave you more confused than when you started. This one doesn't do that.
TL;DR: The most common Fireflies complaint is that the bot model causes friction with clients. The second is that the output is a transcript, not an answer. A good alternative handles your language well, works the way your recording setup works, and tells you what was decided.
What people actually complain about with Fireflies
- The bot. Fireflies joins your meetings as a visible participant. Some clients are uncomfortable with it. Some enterprise environments block bots entirely to comply with strict SOC 2 security standards.
- Pricing per seat. At scale, per-seat pricing adds up faster than it appears on the pricing page.
- Generic summaries. The AI summary is often a broad overview that doesn't extract the specific decision made at minute 47 of a 90-minute call.
- Limited language depth. Fireflies supports multiple languages but is optimised for English. Teams recording in Arabic, French, or less common languages often find the accuracy inconsistent.
The real question: bot-based or upload-based?
Bot-based tools (Fireflies, Otter, tl;dv, Fathom) connect to your calendar, join meetings automatically as a visible participant, and capture audio in real time. They work well for routine internal meetings where everyone knows and accepts the recording setup.
Upload-based tools (AudioMaktube and others) require you to record however you prefer — Zoom's built-in recorder, your phone, any recording app — then upload the file. No bot, no calendar access, no announcement. The tradeoff is one extra step; the advantage is complete flexibility and no client friction.
For anyone recording sensitive client calls or external partner meetings, upload-based is the cleaner option.
What a good alternative must actually do
Do not compare feature lists. Compare outputs:
- After a 90-minute technical meeting, can you find out what was decided without re-reading all 90 minutes? That means decision extraction, not just a transcript.
- If your team uses internal acronyms, does the transcript get them right? That means custom vocabulary support.
- If your team records in French or Arabic, does the transcript and summary come back in the source language — not translated through English first?
- Can you ask the recording a specific question and get a direct answer?
When Fireflies is still the right tool
If your team runs high-volume internal meetings in English, everyone is comfortable with bots, and you need CRM integrations (Fireflies connects to Salesforce and HubSpot directly), Fireflies does that job well.
Switch when the bot model causes friction, when language accuracy is the bottleneck, or when you need more from the transcript than a text file.
How AudioMaktube fits
AudioMaktube is upload-based, bot-free, and designed around what happens after the transcript is ready.
Upload any audio or video file and get:
- Speaker-separated transcript in 99 languages
- AI summary and detailed meeting minutes (Pro, $10/mo)
- Task and action-item extraction
- Translation into 14 languages
- Ask Your Audio — chat with the recording to find specific answers (Pro, $10/mo)
- Vocabulary Library — add your terms so acronyms are transcribed correctly (Pro, $10/mo)
Pricing: Free (2 files/day, up to 20 min), Starter $5/mo, Pro $10/mo, Unlimited $15/mo. All new accounts include a 3-day Pro trial. Start with the free plan.