Why the capture mode matters
Fireflies supports several capture paths. Its Notetaker is visible and can attend without you; its desktop and some Google Meet paths can capture without a participant. Retention and consent behavior still depend on the chosen path and plan.
- Notetaker mode. A participant joins, can be admitted from a waiting room, and can attend without you.
- Bot-free modes. Fireflies documents desktop system-audio capture, a Chrome extension, and a Google Meet SDK path. Confirm the retention behavior for the exact path you use.
- Desktop Take Notes. Fireflies saves notes and a transcript but no replayable audio or video file. Its Notetaker saves audio and video with the meeting record.
- Nod's contract. Nod uses bot-free Mac capture in every meeting and never retains an audio recording.
What Nod does instead
Nod sits in your Mac's menu bar and captures the audio your machine is already playing and recording. There is nothing to invite and nothing to admit, so it works identically on a locked-down client Zoom, an external Teams call, a Google Meet, a Slack huddle, or a phone on speaker. Capture is local on your Mac; transcription isn't. Each audio segment is sent through a European proxy to hosted transcription, and Nod discards it when the text returns. No model trains on the data. Groq may retain transient error or abuse logs for up to 30 days unless Zero Data Retention is enabled. Only the transcript and summary are saved by Nod, encrypted at rest in the EU (AWS eu-west-1). See the security page.
- No participant, no admission, no bot to be denied
- No stored audio; transcript and summary encrypted at rest in the EU
- "Ask Nod" recall across your entire history, in 35 languages
- Answers during the call, not just a recap after it
- Read-only ChatGPT and Claude connectors are built but await directory approval
Where Fireflies still wins
Fireflies offers broader desktop, web, extension, mobile, upload, and telephony capture paths and pushes call data into CRMs and team workflows at a depth Nod does not attempt. Its Notetaker can attend without you and save replayable audio and video; desktop Take Notes instead keeps notes and transcript without an audio or video file. Those choices and broader workflows are useful capabilities Nod does not provide.
If platform breadth, CRM automation, team administration, or retained recordings matter most, choose Fireflies. If you are on a Mac and want one always-bot-free mode with no stored audio, choose Nod. Verify current Fireflies modes in its desktop guide.
Try it on your next call
Nod is free for 14 days with no card, then $12–$24 a month billed annually (pricing). Download Nod for Mac.
More: the head-to-head Nod vs Fireflies, the wider field in our Fireflies alternatives roundup, and why the bot itself is a risk in what a meeting bot actually sees.
Frequently asked questions
What's the best Fireflies alternative without a bot?
Nod is one option on macOS when the requirement is an always-bot-free workflow with no retained audio. Fireflies itself now documents bot-free desktop and Google Meet paths, so compare retention, platform support, integrations, and administration as well as participant visibility.
Does Fireflies.ai join meetings as a participant?
It can. The Fireflies Notetaker joins as a participant, while Fireflies also documents bot-free desktop, Chrome, and Google Meet SDK capture paths. Nod has one capture mode on macOS and never joins as a participant.
Can Nod record a meeting I'm not attending?
No, and that's a real limitation compared to Fireflies. Nod captures your Mac's audio, so it only hears calls you're actually in. Sending a bot to a meeting on your behalf is something a bot-based tool does and Nod deliberately doesn't.
Where does Nod store my meeting data versus Fireflies?
Nod stores only the transcript and summary, encrypted with AES-256 in the EU (AWS eu-west-1, Ireland) under per-user Row-Level Security, with no model training; audio is discarded after transcription. Fireflies retains meeting data according to capture mode and plan. Verify its current storage region, retention, and privacy controls directly.