Shadow and joinly are both AI meeting assistants for recording, transcription, and summaries, compared here on pricing, features, and workflow fit. Shadow: A bot-free, Mac-based AI meeting assistant that transcribes and summarizes calls locally without joining as a participant. joinly: Open-source, self-hostable connector that lets AI agents join Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams calls to transcribe, listen, and act in real time via MCP. They overlap on ai-meeting-assistants, so the right pick depends on team size, budget, and which meeting workflows you automate.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
For ai-meeting-assistants workflows, shortlist Shadow when capturing notes and summaries across multiple conferencing platforms without a bot joining matters most, and joinly when building custom ai meeting agents that answer questions and run tasks during live calls matters most. Both record across Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams; trial each on real meetings before committing.
A bot-free, Mac-based AI meeting assistant that transcribes and summarizes calls locally without joining as a participant.
Open-source, self-hostable connector that lets AI agents join Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams calls to transcribe, listen, and act in real time via MCP.
Shadow is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); joinly is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Shadow | joinly |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Bot-free capture that records system audio without joining the meeting as a participant | MCP server that exposes meeting tools (join/leave, transcript, chat, audio control, snapshots) to AI agents |
| Standout feature | On-device (local) transcription on macOS | Real-time transcription with timestamps and speaker information, subscribable for live updates |
| Team usage | Speaker identification during transcription | Cross-platform support for Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and browser-based calls |
| Integrations | Captures on-screen content in addition to spoken audio | Modular speech-to-text and text-to-speech backends (Whisper, Deepgram, Kokoro, ElevenLabs) |
| Languages & capture | Customizable prompts/Skills to generate notes, summaries, and emails | Model-agnostic: works with OpenAI, Anthropic, and local LLMs via Ollama |
| Best-fit workflow | Webhook integration to connect outputs to other tools | Docker-based self-hosting with optional CUDA GPU image |
Shadow
Choose Shadow if you need capturing notes and summaries across multiple conferencing platforms without a bot joining — strengths include does not add a visible bot to meetings.
joinly
Choose joinly if you need building custom ai meeting agents that answer questions and run tasks during live calls — strengths include fully open source (mit) and self-hostable for complete data control.
Shadow
joinly
It depends on your workflow. Shadow is strong for capturing notes and summaries across multiple conferencing platforms without a bot joining, while joinly is strong for building custom ai meeting agents that answer questions and run tasks during live calls. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Shadow is a free tier with paid upgrades and joinly is a free tier with paid upgrades. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
Yes. Many teams run more than one meeting assistant when the workflows are complementary and the budget is justified.