Fireflies.ai vs Shadow (2026)

Fireflies.ai

by Fireflies.ai

Shadow

by Taper Labs

Pros

• ✓The Free plan includes unlimited transcription, 400 minutes of storage per team and 20 AI credits, and paid plans start at $10 per seat per month billed annually.
• ✓An official remote MCP server lets Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or Devin search and use a team's meeting transcripts, and API access is on every plan.
• ✓Integrations cover more than 100 apps, including Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, Notion and recruiting and dialer tools, and a Chrome extension records without a bot.

Limitations

• –AI summaries are limited on the Free plan, and video recording and downloads require Pro at $10 per seat per month billed annually or $18 monthly.
• –Conversation intelligence and team analytics start on Business at $19 per seat per month billed annually, and recording length is capped at 2 to 4 hours by plan.
• –SSO, SCIM, HIPAA compliance and custom data retention are Enterprise features at $39 per seat per month, sold through sales and billed annually only.

Pros

• ✓No bot joins the call: Shadow captures system audio and the microphone on the Mac, so nothing appears in the participant list on Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or Slack huddles, and Autopilot can start and stop recording with each supported meeting.
• ✓Transcription runs on the Mac and every meeting is saved as Markdown files the user owns, with no history limit on any plan, so the archive opens in Obsidian and AI agents such as Claude can read it without a connector.
• ✓Smart Screenshots capture what is shown on screen as well as what is said, and every Meeting Skill and Action Skill is an editable prompt, so users can build their own notes, follow-up drafts and voice-typing workflows without code.

Limitations

• –Runs only on Macs with Apple Silicon and macOS 14.2 or later. Windows is on a waitlist and there is no mobile app, so teams with mixed platforms cannot standardize on Shadow.
• –AI meeting notes, Skills and Ask require Plus or the two-week trial. Shadow's privacy policy says it is not intended for environments that require HIPAA compliance, and no SOC 2 report or trust center is published.
• –Integrations are limited to native Google Calendar plus webhooks to tools such as Zapier, n8n or Make.com, with no native CRM or project-management integration and no team or admin plan.