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Fireflies.ai vs Shadow

A side-by-side comparison of Fireflies.ai and Shadow, two Meeting tools, drawn from Ignaite's continuously-verified listings.

Compared from listings verified as of

Fireflies.ai

Meeting

AI notetaker that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings.

View Fireflies.ai

Shadow

Meeting

Bot-free, on-device AI meeting assistant for Mac.

View Shadow

At a glance

Feature comparison of Fireflies.ai and Shadow
AttributeFireflies.aiShadow
CategoryMeetingMeeting
PricingFREEMIUMFREEMIUM
LicenseProprietaryProprietary
Deployment (differs)CloudLocal
Platforms (differs)Web, iOS, Android, Browser extensionmacOS
Model support (differs)Single model (proprietary)—
Vendor (differs)Fireflies.aiTaper Labs
Capabilities (differs)
  • Chat with documents
  • Transcription (STT)
  • Speaker diarization
  • Summarization
  • Meeting notes
  • Conversation intelligence
  • Transcription (STT)
  • Dictation
  • Summarization
  • Meeting notes
  • Task management

The honest brief

Fireflies.ai

AskFred answers questions across your whole meeting history; a calendar bot auto-joins Zoom, Meet, Teams, and Webex.

  • Auto-joins major video platforms
  • AskFred queries past meetings
  • CRM and tool integrations
  • Mobile + Chrome capture
  • Bot-joins calls (privacy optics)
  • Best features on paid tiers
  • Free tier storage limits

Shadow

Captures meetings at the OS level without joining as a bot, with transcription kept on-device — unlike notetakers that send a visible participant into the call.

  • On-device transcription for privacy
  • Smart screenshots and post-meeting Skills
  • Auto-detects calls across many apps
  • Generous free tier; Plus is just $8/mo
  • Mac only — no Windows/web
  • AI features require the paid Plus tier
  • Younger product, smaller review base

When to pick which

Both cover Transcription (STT), Summarization, and Meeting notes.

Pick Fireflies.ai if you need Chat with documents, Speaker diarization, and Conversation intelligence.

  • Chat with documents (secondary capability)
  • Speaker diarization (secondary capability)
  • Conversation intelligence (secondary capability)

Pick Shadow if you need Dictation and Task management.

  • Dictation (secondary capability)
  • Task management (secondary capability)

Fireflies.ai leans on Summarization as a headline capability; Shadow treats it as secondary.

  • Summarization (primary capability)

They also differ on:

Deployment
Cloud · Local
Platforms
Web, iOS, Android, Browser extension · macOS
Fireflies.ai detailsShadow detailsAll Meeting apps