A lot of people find Meetily while looking for a local Granola: an AI note taker that listens to the call and writes the notes, but keeps the audio on their own computer. Meetily is a good answer to that, and so is TranscribeX. Neither sends a bot into the meeting. Both run Whisper or Parakeet locally. This page compares them on the things that differ.
The short version
- Both are local and bot-free. Each records your microphone and system audio and transcribes on your machine.
- Meetily Community is free and MIT-licensed. It covers local transcription and local AI summaries, and runs on macOS, Windows and Linux.
- Speakers and auto-detect are paid in Meetily. Meetily Pro is $120 a year per device and adds speaker diarization, meeting detection and more export formats.
- TranscribeX Pro is $39 once and includes speaker recognition, meeting detection, calendar matching, a built-in AI model and automatic email of the recap.
TranscribeX vs Meetily at a glance
| Feature | TranscribeX | Meetily |
|---|---|---|
| Records mic and system audio, no bot | ✓ | ✓ |
| Local speech recognition | ✓Whisper, Parakeet, Qwen3 ASR, Nemotron, Apple on-device | ✓Whisper, Parakeet |
| Detects when a meeting starts | ✓Pro | ✓Pro |
| Speaker recognition | ✓Pro, no speaker limit, Voice Profiles | ✓Pro, with speaker naming |
| Local AI summary | ✓Built-in model, one-click download | ✓Through Ollama (recommended) or your API key |
| Chat with the meeting | ✓Also during the call | ?Marked “Soon” |
| Calendar integration | ✓Event matching, participants in exports | ?Marked “Soon” |
| Automatic export and email after the call | ✓ | ?Not found on its site |
| Records meeting video | ✓ | ?Not found on its site |
| Export formats | TXT free; PDF, Markdown, SRT, VTT, CSV, JSON in Pro | PDF, DOCX, Markdown in Pro |
| CLI, MCP | ✓Free | ✓Pro (MCP, webhooks, CLI) |
| Open source | ✗ | ✓Community Edition, MIT |
| Platforms | Mac | macOS (Apple Silicon), Windows, Linux (build from source) |
| Price | Free, or $39 once for Pro | Community free; Pro $120/year per device |
Meetily details from meetily.ai/pricing and its GitHub repository (Zackriya-Solutions/meeting-minutes), checked October 2026. “Not found on its site” means we couldn’t confirm the feature from Meetily’s public pages. If something has changed, write to support@transcribex.io.
Free vs paid: where each one draws the line
Meetily Community is generous. You get local transcription and local summaries with no usage caps stated, and you can read every line of the code. What you don’t get for free are the two things that make meeting notes readable without effort: knowing who spoke, and recording without having to remember to press the button. Those are in Meetily Pro, along with custom summary templates and PDF, DOCX and Markdown export.
TranscribeX’s free version is aimed at files and dictation rather than meetings. It transcribes without limits using Whisper Tiny and Apple’s on-device model. Meeting detection, speaker recognition and AI summaries are Pro. So the useful comparison is Pro against Pro, and there the main difference is how you pay.
Price: $120 every year or $39 once
Meetily Pro is $10 a month billed yearly, so $120 a year, and each license covers one device. There is a 14-day trial with no card and a 30-day money-back guarantee. We didn’t find a monthly or one-time option on its pricing page. TranscribeX Pro is a single $39 payment with free updates, for one Mac at a time.
| Plan | Billing | 1 year | 3 years |
|---|---|---|---|
| TranscribeX Pro | One-time, free updates | $39 | $39 |
| Meetily Pro | $120/year per device (Community edition is free) | $120 | $360 |
Cheapest paid individual plan at list price (USD unless marked). Prices checked October 2026 on each vendor’s pricing page (Meetily). TranscribeX Pro is a one-time purchase with free updates; the free version has no time limit.
Works out of the box
Meetily’s recommended way to get local summaries is Ollama, a separate program you install and keep running, then pick and download a model in. That is a fine setup if you already use Ollama. If you don’t, TranscribeX is quicker to get going: the language model downloads inside the app with one click, needs no API key or account, and runs offline. You can still connect Ollama, LM Studio, ChatGPT or Gemini if you prefer.
The same applies to the rest of the meeting. Once you switch it on, TranscribeX runs the whole cycle by itself:
- Detects the call in Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, Slack, Discord, Webex or any app you add.
- Matches it to your calendar event and names the recording after it.
- Records audio, and video if you want the slides as well.
- Transcribes and labels speakers locally, remembering regular colleagues through Voice Profiles.
- Writes the summary with key points, decisions and action items, including your own notes.
- Exports and emails the recap, or holds it for you to check first.
The full meeting cycle, step by step.
“Just works. Stable on my M1 iMac. Good UI. Fast. Stable. Very happy with my purchase.”
Where Meetily is the better choice
- Open source. The Community Edition is MIT-licensed, so you or your IT team can audit it, fork it or self-host it.
- Windows and Linux. Meetily runs on Windows and can be built on Linux. TranscribeX is Mac only.
- Free local summaries. If you don’t need speaker labels or auto-detect, Meetily Community gives you transcripts and AI summaries for nothing.
- Teams. Meetily has an Enterprise plan for ten or more licenses.
Choose TranscribeX if…
- You use a Mac and want meetings recorded without pressing anything
- You want speaker names without a yearly fee
- You don’t want to install and run Ollama for summaries
- You want the recap emailed automatically, matched to your calendar
- You also transcribe files, YouTube videos or subtitles
Choose Meetily if…
- Open-source code is a requirement
- You work on Windows or Linux
- Free transcripts and summaries are enough, without speaker labels
- You already run Ollama
Trying TranscribeX alongside Meetily
- Download TranscribeX and open it. No account needed.
- Import a meeting recording you already ran through Meetily and compare the transcript using the same model.
- Turn on meeting detection and join a short test call to check speakers and the summary.
- If it fits, Pro is $39 once with a 7-day refund.
The other local meeting note taker people ask about is Hyprnote, now called Anarlog. For file-focused apps, see MacWhisper and Superwhisper.
Meetily vs TranscribeX: FAQ
Is Meetily free?
Meetily Community Edition is free and open source under the MIT license, with local transcription and local AI summaries. Speaker diarization, meeting auto-detect, custom templates and PDF/DOCX/Markdown export are in Meetily Pro, which costs $120 a year per device (checked October 2026).
Is there a local Granola alternative?
Yes. Granola transcribes in the cloud. Meetily, Anarlog and TranscribeX transcribe on your own computer and don’t send a bot into the call. TranscribeX also writes the summary with a model built into the app, so the whole meeting can stay on your Mac.
Does Meetily need Ollama?
Meetily recommends Ollama for local summaries and also supports cloud providers such as Claude, OpenAI, Groq and OpenRouter with your own key. TranscribeX has its own built-in model and can use Ollama too.
Does TranscribeX run on Windows?
No, TranscribeX is a Mac app. If you need Windows or Linux, Meetily is the better choice of the two.