COMPARE · GRANOLA ALTERNATIVE

FocusBae vs Granola

Granola and FocusBae both record meetings from your computer with no bot in the call. The difference is where the work happens and what you get afterwards. Granola sends audio to cloud transcription and turns your notes into polished AI notes. FocusBae transcribes on your Mac and focuses on the action items: who promised what, in their own words, and whether it got done.

Feature	FocusBae	Granola
How it records	On your Mac: microphone, system audio or both. No bot joins.	On your computer or iPhone. No bot joins.
Where audio is transcribed	On your Mac by default. Team admins can choose cloud transcription for their workspace.	In the cloud (Deepgram and AssemblyAI). Audio is deleted after transcription.
Where notes are stored	On your Mac. Pages you share with a team sync to FocusBae for teams.	Granola’s cloud (AWS, United States), encrypted at rest and in transit.
Account needed	No. The Mac app works without signing in.	Yes.
Works offline	Yes, once the speech models are downloaded.	No. Transcription needs an internet connection.
AI meeting notes	No. You write the notes; FocusBae suggests action items from the transcript.	Yes. Merges what you type with the transcript into AI-written notes.
Action items	Suggested from the transcript with the exact quote, owner and due date. You accept or dismiss each one.	Listed in each meeting’s AI notes.
Following up	One Actions list across all meetings, and a page per person: what you owe them and what they owe you.	Per meeting. Chat across your notes to find what was agreed.
Open source	Yes, MIT licence. The code is on GitHub.	No.
Devices	Mac with Apple Silicon, macOS 26 or later. Teams can read and comment on the web.	Mac, Windows and iPhone.
Price	Free. FocusBae for teams is in a free pilot.	Free with 30 days of history. Business $14 per user a month. Enterprise from $35.

Checked October 31, 2026. Prices and features change, so check Granola’s own pages before deciding. Spotted a mistake? Tell us and we’ll fix it.

Choose Granola if

You want finished, AI-written meeting notes. FocusBae doesn’t write summaries yet.
You use Windows or want to record on your iPhone.
You need cloud-grade transcription in many languages. On-device transcription in FocusBae works best in English.
You want integrations with tools like Slack, Notion or a CRM.

Choose FocusBae if

You don’t want meeting audio to leave your Mac.
You care most about what people promised and whether it got done.
You want it free, with no account and no history limit.
You want to read the code of the app that hears your meetings.

Get FocusBae for Mac

Sources

FocusBae details come from the current Mac release and its source code. See all comparisons.