MacWhisper vs Granola AI: local or cloud meeting notes?

• MacWhisper is better if you want meetings and files transcribed on your Mac, speakers split, and a license you pay for once.
• Granola AI is better if you want polished notes that blend with your own, on every device you own, and cloud transcription is fine.
• Over three years, MacWhisper Pro costs €64. Granola's Business plan costs $504 per person, though its free plan may be enough.

Neither is ours. We make Koi, a third option covered at the end, and we say where it falls short. Every fact about MacWhisper and Granola comes from their own sites and docs, or the press we link, checked October 16, 2026. We didn't test either app for accuracy.

They answer the same question, “what was said in that meeting?”, from opposite ends. MacWhisper is a transcription app that records meetings. Granola is a notes app that listens to them.

This is the whole story, so it's worth being exact.

MacWhisper transcribes with models on your Mac. Cloud transcription and AI summaries are there if you add your own keys for services like Deepgram or ElevenLabs, and it can also summarize with a model you run yourself through Ollama or LM Studio. Left on its local models, the recording and the transcript stay on your Mac.

Granola's security page says the audio goes to transcription providers like Deepgram and Assembly, and summaries are written by cloud AI models. Granola doesn't keep the audio. It stores your transcripts and notes on AWS in the US, encrypted, with a SOC 2 Type 2 report, and trains its own models on anonymized data unless you opt out.

Neither is unsafe by default. They make different promises: MacWhisper's is that the words stay home, Granola's is that the words are well looked after somewhere else.

MacWhisper, more often. Version 15.2, released in September 2026, splits up to 8 speakers with NVIDIA's diarization model and shows a live transcript while the meeting runs, per 9to5Mac.

Granola names people from the meeting app itself: in Google Meet through Chrome or its extension, the Zoom desktop app and the Teams desktop app, per its docs. Anywhere else, including a room full of people around one laptop, the transcript shows Me and Them.

Both record from your computer, so no bot joins either way. MacWhisper's meeting docs list Zoom, Teams, Slack, WhatsApp, Telegram, Webex, Discord, Chime, Skype and the major browsers, spotted as they start. FaceTime isn't supported, which it puts down to macOS privacy limits. The feature is in beta, the docs warn of occasional data loss, and automatic detection is only in the direct download, not the App Store edition. Since version 15 it needs macOS 15 or later, per TidBITS.

Granola works with any meeting app that plays through your computer, and you start it yourself for each meeting. It also has apps for iPhone, Android and Apple Watch.

MacWhisper is paid once; Granola is paid by the month, per person. Granola doesn't show a yearly price, so this uses the monthly one.

The €64 license is the direct download. The App Store edition, called Whisper Transcription, sells subscriptions instead. Granola's free Basic plan has no meeting cap on its pricing page, only the 30 days of history, and briefs, follow-up emails and integrations need Business.

• Speech becomes text on your Mac, so the meeting never has to leave it.
• Up to 8 speakers split, not just you and everyone else.
• Audio and video files, YouTube links and subtitles, not only live meetings.
• More than 100 languages, against Granola's 32.
• Pay once, €64, and keep it.

• Notes that read like yours: it blends what you typed with the transcript.
• Apps on Windows, iPhone, Android and Apple Watch, with the same notes on each.
• Shared folders, templates and Slack on every plan, and Notion, HubSpot or Zapier on Business.
• Briefs before meetings and follow-up emails, on Business.
• A free plan with no meeting cap, only a 30-day limit on history.

That's where we'd put Koi. Like MacWhisper, it turns the call into text on your Mac, with Whisper. Unlike either, it also films the screen with both sides' sound, so you can rewatch the call, and the video never leaves your Mac. Tap Fn + ⌃, pick Online call, and your microphone is You while what the Mac plays is Them. Pick In person for a meeting in the room, and Koi keeps the sound to play back.

Like Granola, it writes notes in the cloud, but only when you say yes to that recording: the transcript's words go to Koi's AI for a title, a short summary, your to-dos and a follow-up email draft. Koi also offers a “Brief me” page before a meeting your notes mention, and live captions of the other side in your language on macOS 26 and later.

Where it falls short of both: no speaker names past You and Them, no file transcription, no free plan, and Mac only. Pro is $20 a month after a 3-day trial with a card, or Lifetime, $59 for the first 25 buyers, rising to $199. More on recording calls with Koi, or see our MacWhisper and Granola AI alternatives.

Neither sends a bot, so nothing appears in the participant list, and the same is true of Koi. Telling people is up to you, and some places require everyone on a call to agree. This isn't legal advice; check the rules where you and the others are.

It's now a legal question too. Chamberlain v. Granola, a proposed class action in the Northern District of California, alleges Granola captured conversations without the other participants' knowledge and used them to improve its models, per RuntimeWire on August 1, 2026. These are allegations, and nothing has been decided. Whatever you use, a quick “mind if I record this?” at the start covers you.

• Your words should never leave your Mac, and you transcribe files too? MacWhisper.
• You take notes in the meeting and want them polished, on every device? Granola AI.
• You want the video of the call, kept on your Mac, and notes only when you ask? Koi.

Still looking? Our local meeting notes list ranks apps by how much stays on your Mac, and the bot-free note takers list covers the cloud ones.