Granola vs Shadow

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

Compared from listings verified as of 2026-06-20

Granola

Meeting

AI notepad for back-to-back meetings — captures your Mac's audio, no meeting bot.

View Granola

Shadow

Meeting

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

View Shadow

At a glance

Feature comparison of Granola and Shadow
Attribute	Granola	Shadow
Category	Meeting	Meeting
Pricing	FREEMIUM	FREEMIUM
License	Proprietary	Proprietary
Deployment (differs)	Cloud	Local
Platforms (differs)	macOS, Windows, iOS	macOS
Model support	—	—
Vendor (differs)	Granola	Taper Labs

The honest brief

Granola

Captures system audio with no bot in the call, then blends your raw notes into the AI summary.

No bot joins the meeting
Works with any video platform
Polished notes from your own context
AI chat across your notes

Stores transcript, not audio/video replay
Free tier limits history and integrations
Desktop-app dependent capture

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

Granola details Shadow details All Meeting apps