Fireflies is a deep, integration-heavy notetaker built around a cloud archive of your calls. If you want 100+ integrations and a big searchable cloud, it’s strong. But it’s per-seat, meters advanced AI behind AI credits, and everything lives in Fireflies’ cloud. Raven keeps meetings in a local database, has no seat fee or credits, adds live help during the call (Fireflies has Live Assist too, but it draws down AI credits), and is open source.

At a glance

At a glance

RavenFireflies
Live in-call assistYes - free, unmeteredYes - Live Assist, but metered by AI credits
Where your meetings liveLocal SQLiteFireflies' cloud archive
Advanced AIUnlimited (your own key)Metered by AI credits on top of the seat
PriceFree, open source (your own keys)Free (limited storage + credits); Pro $10/user/mo (annual), $18 monthly; Business $19/user/mo
CaptureLocal, bot-free (Mac + Windows)Notetaker bot (plus some browser/no-bot modes)
Open sourceYesNo

Price

Price

Fireflies’ free tier records and transcribes, but caps storage and hands you a small one-time pool of AI credits - the advanced summaries and AskFred draw them down, so heavy use pushes you to Pro at $10/user/mo (annual; $18 monthly) and integrations/CRM depth to Business at $19/user/mo. Every tier is per seat.

Raven’s AI is unlimited because you bill your own provider for usage - typically a few dollars a month - with no seat fee and no credit system.

Where your meetings live

Where your meetings live

Fireflies stores your recordings and transcripts in its cloud so it can offer archive-wide search and integrations. Raven keeps everything in a local SQLite database on your machine - no account, no server - and its Ask feature searches your history from a local index. Audio only goes to the providers you chose with your own keys, and because Raven is open source, that path is auditable.

What Fireflies does better (honestly)

Integration breadth - 100+ apps, deep CRM (HubSpot/Salesforce/Zoho/Pipedrive), and AskFred.

  • Live Assist - real-time suggestions and mid-call AskFred answers (metered by AI credits).

  • A big cloud archive with cross-meeting search and analytics on higher tiers.

  • Mature mobile apps and team features.

If your workflow is “route meeting data into a dozen other tools,” Fireflies is built for that.

When Raven wins

When Raven wins

  • You don’t want a per-seat subscription or AI-credit metering.

  • You want meetings on your machine, not a cloud archive.

  • You want live help that’s free and unmetered - Fireflies has Live Assist, but it draws down AI credits.

  • You want to audit the tool (open source) and pay your AI provider cents.

Switching from Fireflies

Switching from Fireflies

  1. Export any transcripts you want to keep from Fireflies.

  2. Download Raven, add your keys, enable meeting auto-start.

  1. Run both for a week; cancel Fireflies once Raven covers your notes habit. (Importers are on the roadmap.)