Comparisons

VeloxWaves vs Fireflies: On-Device Meeting Notes or a Hosted Notetaker?

August 19, 2026 · 8 min read

Fireflies.ai is a hosted AI meeting assistant: a bot can join Zoom, Meet, or Teams, or a desktop app can capture the call, then transcripts and summaries live in Fireflies. VeloxWaves is a desktop app that transcribes and summarizes on your computer, with no participant in the call and no cloud speech mode.

VeloxWaves vs Fireflies at a glance

Criterion	VeloxWaves	Fireflies
Capture method	Microphone and system audio on the computer you are using	Notetaker bot, Chrome extension, desktop app, mobile app, uploads, and dialer APIs
Where STT runs	On-device. No cloud transcription mode	Hosted transcription in Fireflies
Where notes live	On your computer, in a local knowledge graph	Fireflies cloud, with optional private storage on paid plans
Bot in the call	No	Yes, when you invite the notetaker or auto-join from the calendar
Platforms	Windows, macOS, and Linux desktop	Zoom, Meet, Teams, Webex, and others, plus web, desktop, and mobile
Pricing	Free forever — no account, no word caps; Teams (per-seat) coming for organizations	Free plan with storage limits; paid seats advertised from about $10/user/month billed annually
Team and CRM	No CRM, Slack, or calendar auto-join	CRM, project tools, ATS, Slack, channels, comments, and AskFred search
HIPAA claims	None. Local processing is not a certification	Fireflies advertises HIPAA, SOC 2 Type II, and GDPR

Product details and public prices checked August 19, 2026. Plans and features can change.

Fireflies is a meeting platform. VeloxWaves is a local notetaker.

Fireflies is built to capture conversations across conferencing tools and turn them into a searchable company archive. The notetaker can join a live meeting or auto-join from the calendar. Desktop and mobile capture exist too. Transcripts, summaries, soundbites, and analytics live in Fireflies, then flow into CRM and Slack.

VeloxWaves does not join the call. You start capture on the computer that is in the meeting. Speech recognition and the summary run there. Notes can feed a private second brain on the same machine. It cannot record a meeting you skipped.

Choose Fireflies for unattended capture and team workflow

If the job is a bot in the participant list, a library other people can search, conversation analytics, or auto-filled CRM fields, Fireflies is the product. Zapier-style roundups treat it as a collaboration and topic-tracking tool for that reason.

VeloxWaves has none of that surface. No speaker talk-time dashboard, no soundbites, no channels. Asking it to replace Fireflies for a sales org is the wrong comparison.

Choose VeloxWaves when the audio must not leave the machine

Hosted notetakers can offer retention controls, private storage, and contractual limits on training. Those are cloud privacy features. On-device means the speech model runs on your hardware, so meeting audio is not uploaded for transcription.

That matters for client conversations, internal strategy, or any call where a third-party archive is the problem, not the missing integration. Dictation into other apps uses the same local path.

Pricing and certifications

Fireflies offers a free plan with storage limits and paid seats commonly quoted from about $10 per user per month on annual billing. Exact minutes and storage change with the plan; read Fireflies pricing before you buy.

VeloxWaves is free — no subscription, no word caps, no account. Paid per-seat Teams licensing for organizations is planned.

Fireflies advertises HIPAA, SOC 2 Type II, and GDPR. VeloxWaves does not present local processing as a compliance certification. Architectural locality is not a substitute for an organization's own legal review.

Who should choose each app?

A missing bot does not remove the duty to tell other people you are taking notes. Fireflies' own FAQ addresses recording awareness; VeloxWaves leaves consent to you.

Choose VeloxWaves for on-device meeting notes with no participant in the call.
Choose Fireflies for bots, team libraries, CRM, and advertised enterprise certifications.
If you want bot-free capture but still accept cloud STT, compare Granola instead.

Sources

This comparison uses public product, pricing, and privacy information from the companies themselves. We did not assign accuracy or speed winners without a controlled, reproducible test.

Competitor names and trademarks belong to their respective owners. VeloxWaves is not affiliated with or endorsed by Fireflies.

Related comparisons

VeloxWaves is free forever — no account, no credit card, no word caps.

Download VeloxWaves