Buzz: Popular open-source desktop app that transcribes and translates audio offline on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper. Fireflies: AI meeting assistant that records, transcribes, and summarizes calls across Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Webex, with the AskFred AI chat and native CRM sync. This comparison weighs them on pricing, features, and everyday workflow fit.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Buzz when transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline matters most, and Fireflies when recruiting and interview notes matters most. Run both through a week of actual calls to see which suits your workflow.
Popular open-source desktop app that transcribes and translates audio offline on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper.
AI meeting assistant that records, transcribes, and summarizes calls across Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Webex, with the AskFred AI chat and native CRM sync.
Buzz is a widely used open-source desktop application that transcribes and translates audio offline on the user's personal computer, powered by OpenAI's Whisper. It is MIT-licensed and actively maintained, with v1.4.4 released in March 2026, and it has grown a large community with roughly 19.7k GitHub stars. Buzz runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux, with installation options including Flatpak, Snap, and PyPI. It supports both importing existing audio and video files and real-time transcription from microphone input, and it can export results in formats such as TXT, SRT, and VTT for subtitling and documentation. The app includes an advanced transcript viewer with search and playback controls, a watch folder for automatically transcribing new files, and a command-line interface for automation. It offers GPU acceleration through CUDA for Nvidia cards, Apple Silicon support, and Vulkan for many other GPUs, which makes faster transcription practical even on laptops. Buzz also provides speaker identification and speech separation for noisy audio, plus a plugin system that adds capabilities like AI-generated summaries. Because all processing happens locally, recordings and transcripts remain on the user's machine rather than being uploaded to a cloud service. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Fireflies.ai joins video calls to record and transcribe meetings, then generates AI summaries, action items, and fully searchable notes. Its AskFred assistant lets you query past meetings in natural language ("what did we decide about pricing?"), while conversation-intelligence features add topic trackers, talk-time, and sentiment analytics. Fireflies works across Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Webex, transcribes in a wide range of languages, and integrates natively with CRMs such as Salesforce and HubSpot plus Slack, Notion, Asana, and Zapier. A free plan covers limited transcription and AI credits for individuals; paid tiers raise transcription and storage limits and unlock team conversation analytics, making it a strong fit for sales, recruiting, and customer-research teams that live in their CRM.
Best suited for
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Fireflies is from $18/mo (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Buzz | Fireflies |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Offline transcription and translation using OpenAI's Whisper | Meeting transcription |
| Standout feature | Real-time transcription from microphone input | AI summaries |
| Team usage | Speaker identification and speech separation for noisy audio | AskFred AI chat |
| Integrations | Exports to TXT, SRT, and VTT | CRM sync |
| Languages & capture | Watch folder for automatic transcription and a command-line interface | Conversation intelligence |
| Best-fit workflow | GPU acceleration via CUDA, Apple Silicon, and Vulkan | Meeting transcription |
Buzz
Choose Buzz if you need transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline — strengths include fully offline so audio and transcripts stay on the user's computer.
Fireflies
Choose Fireflies if you need sales call capture and crm logging — strengths include powerful meeting search plus the askfred natural-language assistant.
Buzz
Fireflies
It depends on your workflow. Buzz is strong for transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline, while Fireflies is strong for sales call capture and crm logging. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades and Fireflies is from $18/mo. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
Sure. Running both makes sense when their strengths don't overlap and the budget allows.
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