A Granola alternative that transcribes calls on your own computer

Granola made AI meeting notes feel light: no bot joins the call, you jot a few words, and it writes clean notes from the conversation. If you are looking for a Granola alternative, the usual reasons are where the audio goes, the 30-day history on the free plan, or a system Granola does not list, like Linux. Barside is a free desktop app for Windows, Linux and Mac. It transcribes your calls on your own computer, then uses the AI you connect to pull out decisions, tasks and a recap draft. It also imports your Granola notes, so your history comes with you.

This page compares the two honestly, including the things Granola does better.

The short answer

Granola is built for one job: turning a meeting into tidy notes with little effort. It listens through your computer's audio, works with Zoom, Google Meet, Teams and any other meeting app, blends your own quick notes with the transcript, and lets you chat with your meetings afterwards. It runs on macOS, Windows, iPhone, Android and Apple Watch.

Barside takes a different route to a similar result:

• The transcript is made on your computer. Barside's speech engine (Whisper) turns your microphone and your computer's sound into text in a note, labelled You and Others, in English or 34 more languages. No audio goes to a transcription service, and you need no AI key for this part.
• Your own AI does the follow-up. Meeting follow-through reads the transcript with the AI you connected and proposes a summary, quoted decisions, tasks with owners and a recap draft. You check everything before it saves.
• Everything stays in your library. Transcripts, recaps and tasks are ordinary notes on your computer, next to the rest of your work.

What Barside does not do: write polished notes from your jottings during the call, name each speaker on calls in other apps, or record on your phone.

Why people look for a Granola alternative

These are the common reasons, stated fairly:

• Where the audio goes. Granola sends your microphone and computer audio to its transcription providers, such as Deepgram and Assembly, and uses AI providers such as OpenAI and Anthropic for summaries. It does not store the audio, and it does not allow third parties such as OpenAI or Anthropic to train on your data. Its security page also says Granola trains on your anonymized data to improve Granola; you can opt out in Settings, and Enterprise has it off by default. Some clients and teams do not want call audio to leave the computer at all.
• History on the free plan. Granola Basic shows 30 days of meeting history. Older meetings need Business, at US$14 per user a month as of September 2026.
• Sign-in. Granola only supports Google and Microsoft sign-in, so you need one of those accounts.
• Linux. Granola lists apps for macOS, Windows, iOS, Android and Apple Watch, but not Linux. Barside runs on Windows, Linux and Mac.
• One place for the work. You may want meeting notes next to your projects, tasks and reminders, not in a separate app.

Barside at a glance: transcripts, then follow-through

In Barside, a call has two parts. First the transcript, made on your computer. Then the follow-through, made with your AI.

1. Transcribe a call. Press the microphone on the desktop bar, choose Transcribe a call in the assistant, or type call in the search bar. Press Start recording: Barside makes a note called "Call transcript" in your workspace and records your microphone and your computer's sound, which is how it hears the other people in Zoom, Teams, Meet or any other app.
2. Speech becomes text as the call goes on. Every 30 seconds, Barside writes down the latest part of the call, with a time and a label: [03:12] You: … for your microphone, Others for computer audio. Each piece with sound in it is also kept in the note as a WAV file. Press Stop & save when the call ends.
3. Meeting follow-through. Open Library & briefing, then Meeting follow-through (or use the button next to a note's title), choose the transcript and press Analyze meeting. You get a Meeting summary, Decisions quoted from the call, Proposed tasks with the owner and the deadline words people used, and a Follow-up draft you can edit.
4. You decide what to keep. Select the tasks, check each owner and pick a reminder time, or leave it blank for no alarm. Saving makes a recap note and one note per task. Open commitments show in your daily briefing until you complete them. The draft is never sent for you.

If you want this to happen by itself, turn on After each call transcript, prepare a follow-up in Agents & approvals → Meeting. It is off by default. After each call, the agent proposes a follow-up checklist at the end of the transcript note, reminders for dated tasks and a recap email, and each one waits in the approval inbox. Approving the email opens a draft in your email app. See AI agents that ask before they act.

The step-by-step guides are transcribe calls on your computer and meeting follow-up and action items.

Granola vs Barside: feature comparison

Pricing compared

Prices are as each company's page shows them, as of September 2026.

What a follow-through costs depends on the model you pick and the length of the call, so check your AI company's prices. Transcription itself costs nothing: it runs on your computer.

Where your meeting goes

With Granola, audio passes from your microphone and computer audio to its transcription provider while you talk, and Granola keeps only the transcript and your notes. Notes are stored in Granola's US-hosted AWS private cloud, encrypted at rest and in transit, and independent auditors have checked its security against SOC 2 Type 2. Summaries use AI providers such as OpenAI and Anthropic.

With Barside, speech turns into text on your computer. The call audio and the transcript are saved in your note, in your own library, and nothing is uploaded. Two things do use the internet, and only when you choose them:

• The speech engine is downloaded once from GitHub, and its model from Hugging Face (about 150 MB, plus 141 MB for more languages).
• When you run Meeting follow-through, the transcript goes to the AI company you connected (such as Anthropic, OpenAI, Google or OpenRouter), and that company's data policy applies. In Library → Sources you can leave any workspace or note out of Library AI.

Your notes and ordinary backups are not encrypted by Barside, so protect your computer like you would any file. Computer audio includes every sound playing on the computer, so close other audio, and tell everyone on the call before you record. The privacy guide explains recordings and transcripts, and the AI section explains what goes to your AI company.

Where Granola is better

Granola is the more polished meeting notetaker. If these points matter to you, it is the better choice.

• Notes from your jottings. You type a few words during the call, and Granola writes full notes around them. Barside keeps your notes and the transcript apart, and its analysis comes after the call.
• Speaker names. On Zoom, Google Meet and Teams, Granola can tag lines with each person's display name. Barside labels lines by audio channel: You for your microphone and Others for everyone else. In a room with one microphone, every line is You.
• Phones and the Mac. Granola has iPhone, Android and Apple Watch apps for meetings away from your desk, and it runs on the Mac today. Barside is a desktop app for Windows, Linux and Mac, and its call transcripts need macOS 14.2 or later to record the computer's sound.
• No AI setup. Granola's AI works when you sign in. Barside's summaries need an AI connection in Settings → AI, with your own Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or OpenRouter account.
• Teams and tools. Shared folders, integrations with Notion, HubSpot, Attio and Zapier, an API, and SSO on Enterprise. In Barside, you share a note by posting a copy to a Space.
• Pre-meeting briefs. Granola's Business and Enterprise plans include pre-meeting briefs. Barside reminds you before a meeting and makes a meeting note on request, but you start the transcript yourself.

How to move from Granola to Barside

Barside has a Granola importer, so your past meetings come along.

1. In Granola, open Settings, click Profile in the sidebar (under Preferences), and click Generate CSV. Granola emails you a link within a few hours. The link works for 24 hours, and you can make one export every 24 hours.
2. Download the CSV. It includes your full history, even notes older than 30 days that the free plan hides. Granola leaves out deleted notes and notes without a summary.
3. In Barside, open Settings → Import notes, choose Granola and click Choose CSV.
4. Check the preview: the number of notes and any warnings. Choose a new or existing workspace and import.
5. Each meeting becomes a note with its Attendees, Granola's summary, your own notes under My notes and the Transcript. Meeting dates come along.

The file is read on your computer and nothing is uploaded. If an import fails, nothing is added. After importing, you can run Meeting follow-through on any old meeting, or ask your whole library a question with AI search, with answers that cite the meetings they came from. The import guide covers every other app Barside reads.

A meeting in Barside, start to finish

1. Once: in Settings → Assistant settings, choose Install speech (about 150 MB). For other languages, choose Install more languages (141 MB) under Speech language, then pick a language or automatic detection.
2. Once: in Settings → AI, connect Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or OpenRouter.
3. Optional: in Settings → Calendars, choose Add calendar and paste your Google or Outlook calendar's private iCal address. Barside reminds you before each meeting (2 minutes by default), and Meeting note makes a note with the event's title, time, people and place. See the calendar guide.
4. When the call starts: tell everyone you are recording. Press the microphone on the desktop bar, or type call in the search bar, and press Start recording.
5. During the call: write your own points in the meeting note if you like. The transcript fills its own note every 30 seconds.
6. When it ends: press Stop & save.
7. Follow through: open Meeting follow-through, choose the transcript, press Analyze meeting, keep the tasks you want, set reminder times and save. Paste the follow-up draft into your email, or into your team's Space chat, where an owner or moderator can pin it to the Pinned bar at the top.

If the meeting happens in Barside itself, it is even simpler. In Barside's video meetings, a host turns on captions for everyone, and each person's Barside writes down that person's own words on their computer. When the meeting ends, the meeting note holds who came, a transcript that names who said each line, and the chat, ready for follow-through. Guests who join from a browser see the captions, but their own words are captioned only in the app.

Who should switch, and who should stay

Barside is a good fit if you:

• want call audio to stay on your computer, and your transcripts in your own library;
• use Windows, Linux or Mac, and want meeting notes next to your projects, tasks and reminders;
• are happy to connect your own AI and pay only for what you use;
• want your full meeting history without a paid plan;
• like to approve every task, reminder and email before anything happens.

Stay with Granola if you:

• rely on notes written from your jottings during the call;
• need speaker names, or record meetings on your phone;
• work on a Mac;
• share notes across a team with CRM and Notion integrations;
• want AI that works with no setup at all.

Other Granola alternatives worth a look

• Otter.ai. Live transcription with speaker recognition, from a meeting agent that joins Zoom, Teams and Google Meet or from its desktop app. Basic is free with 300 transcription minutes a month and 30 minutes per conversation. Read our Otter.ai alternative guide.
• Fathom. A free plan with recordings, transcripts and AI summaries, captured by a bot or, in a beta for the Mac, without one. Premium is US$20 a month, or US$16 a month billed annually.

For a wider view, compare the best AI meeting assistants and the best transcription apps.

Works well with meeting notes