Shadow vs Fireflies.ai (2026)

Shadow

by Taper Labs

Fireflies.ai

by Fireflies.ai

Pros

• ✓Bot-free architecture means no visible participant ever joins meetings, a significant differentiator for client-facing sales calls, regulated industries, and confidential conversations where vendor bots create trust friction or compliance issues
• ✓Captures both audio and on-screen content through smart screenshots where every other major meeting AI (Fathom, Fireflies, Granola, Otter.ai) captures audio only, critical for design reviews, product demos, and slide-driven presentations where screen context changes meaning
• ✓Shadow 2.0 auto-execute Skills run post-meeting actions (PDF creation, slide generation, CRM updates, follow-up emails, scheduling) automatically with no manual button press, putting Shadow among the few meeting tools in the autonomous-action-taking category rather than just transcription

Limitations

• ⚠Mac-only with no Windows or mobile support: this excludes Windows-heavy organisations and mobile-first users and is the single most-cited gap in public user feedback; teams with mixed Mac and Windows environments cannot standardize on Shadow
• ⚠No first-party SOC 2 certification and no public security or trust page: procurement teams requiring vendor-confirmed SOC 2 should use Fathom (SOC 2 Type II) or Fireflies (SOC 2 Type II) instead; Shadow's privacy posture relies on local on-device transcription plus OpenAI Enterprise Policy for AI features
• ⚠Integration depth is Zapier-dependent rather than native: connecting Shadow outputs to Salesforce, HubSpot, Notion, or Linear requires a separate Zapier subscription and webhook configuration, adding cost and setup complexity versus competitors with direct native integrations

Pros

• ✓Most comprehensive free tier in the meeting intelligence category with unlimited transcription, 100 plus language support, API access, and mobile app at $0: enabling enterprise-level evaluation before any financial commitment
• ✓SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and HIPAA compliance with BAA at Enterprise tier covers the widest range of regulated industries including healthcare, finance, and legal, with broader compliance coverage than most direct competitors
• ✓200 plus AI Apps for post-meeting automation including sales call analysis, objection tracking, content calendar generation, and BANT and MEDDIC extraction provide workflow depth well beyond simple transcription

Limitations

• ⚠AI credits are a one-time shared workspace pool that does not reset monthly; heavy users of AskFred and advanced AI summaries exhaust the allotment quickly, triggering auto-recharge at $5 per 50 credits unless explicitly disabled
• ⚠Notetaker bot joins meetings as a named participant on most plans; a Chrome extension provides bot-free recording as an alternative, but the bot remains the default and most visible capture method, which can create friction in sensitive client-facing calls
• ⚠Video recording is locked behind Business at $19 per seat per month annual, meaning teams that need to review screen content alongside transcripts must upgrade past Pro even for moderate usage needs