Spake and Granola
They do different jobs, so start with the job.
Two jobs
Granola is for meetings. It listens to the call, combines its transcript with the notes you type, and writes meeting notes for you, with team features and calendar flows. Its transcription runs in the cloud, and it deletes the audio after transcribing.1,2,3
Spake is for notes about what's on your screen, and a call is one of those. It records you and the call's audio as separate sources, plus the screen. It transcribes on your Mac, and keeps all of it as files. It doesn't write a summary for you; the transcript is a record of what was said, not a rewrite of it.
If you want…
| …this | Better fit |
|---|---|
| AI-written meeting notes, merged with what you typed | Granola1 |
| Shared notes across a team; per-seat plans | Granola1,3 |
| Transcription on your own Mac; recordings stay there | Spake |
| To keep the recording itself | Spake |
| The screen in the note: the slide, the document, the dashboard | Spake |
| One payment instead of a subscription | Spake ($29 once) |
| Only local meeting audio, for free | Neither: several free, open-source local meeting recorders exist (Yogurt is one)4 |
The facts
| Compared | Granola | Spake |
|---|---|---|
| Where transcription runs | Cloud (its security page names Deepgram and Assembly as providers)2 | On the Mac (Parakeet, Whisper) |
| The audio afterwards | “Audio deleted after transcription”3 | Kept, as a WAV in the note's folder |
| Screen recording | None mentioned on its home, pricing or changelog pages; its capture is device audio1 | Yes, MP4 plus recognized screen text |
| Meeting bot | None (“bot-free, device-audio capture”)3 | None |
| Price | Basic $0 (30 days of history), Business $14 and Enterprise $35 per user per month3Checked on 13 November 2026 | $29 once, up to 3 Macs |
| Platforms | Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android and Apple Watch5 | Mac only (Apple silicon, macOS 15+) |
Recording other people
Recording a call can need everyone's consent, depending on where they are. Spake doesn't announce itself on a call, so tell people.
Try it
$29 once, up to 3 Macs. 14-day trial with everything on. 30-day refunds. Apple silicon, macOS 15 or later.
What a note is on disk: the note format. What Spake sends over the network, and when: privacy.
Sources
Facts about other products, and the day each was read.
Granola. Every capture claim on its home, pricing and changelog pages is audio; the nearest visual features are images and files you add yourself. AI-written meeting notes that merge with what you type, team features and calendar flows.
Granola. Transcription runs in the cloud; the security page names Deepgram and Assembly as providers.
Granola. Basic $0 (30 days of history), Business $14 and Enterprise $35 per user per month. “Bot-free, device-audio capture.” “Audio deleted after transcription.”
Yogurt. A free, MIT-licensed, on-device meeting recorder.
Granola. Available for macOS, Windows, iOS and Android, with an Apple Watch app (28 July 2026).