Callbox vs Fireflies.ai

Yes. Callbox records the call from your own Chrome tab, so nobody new joins it. It works on Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams in the browser, and on any other call that plays in a Chrome tab. One click, or Alt+Shift+R, captures the tab's audio and your microphone.

Fireflies.ai works the other way by default. Its bot joins the meeting and "appears as Fireflies.ai Notetaker", either because you added fred@fireflies.ai to the invite or because auto-join sends it to the meetings on your calendar. Fireflies says the Notetaker is "always visible in the participant list". If the meeting has a waiting room, a host must let it in, and Google Meet may flag it as a "potential risk". Giving the bot another name costs $5 a month on Pro and Business.^[1][14]

A bot has one real advantage. It can record a meeting you never join, and Callbox cannot, because it records only the calls you attend in Chrome. Callbox also shows no banner to the other side, so telling people that you record is up to you, as with any recorder.

Yes, in two ways, and each has a limit. The Fireflies Chrome extension records without a bot, but only on Google Meet. The Windows and Mac desktop app records Zoom, Teams, Meet and other calls in a "system audio" mode, also without a bot.^[1][2]

That desktop mode keeps less than a bot recording. Fireflies says it "does not save separate audio or video files", and it labels people "Speaker 1 / Speaker 2" instead of by name. By default it also tells the other people in the call, and the notices differ by system. On a Mac it plays a spoken message about 10 seconds in and posts a chat message, and on Windows it plays the message and can put an "AI Taking Notes" watermark on your camera. You can turn these notices off.^[2]

Callbox records Meet, Zoom and Teams calls in the browser without a bot, and it keeps an audio file you can play and download. Every call it records tells "You" apart from the other side, and Meet and Teams calls get each speaker's name from the call's tiles. What Callbox cannot record is the Zoom or Teams desktop app, which the Fireflies desktop app can.^[2]

Fireflies Free stores 400 minutes of meetings in total, about 6.7 hours, and that total does not reset each month. When you reach it, Fireflies says "older meetings must be deleted to free space." Each meeting stops at 2 hours, you cannot download transcripts or recordings, and Free records no video.^[6][12][4]

Transcription on Free comes with a condition. Accounts created since September 1, 2026 get 3 meeting transcriptions, and only turning on Auto Join, which sends the bot to your calendar meetings, unlocks unlimited ones. The "Only when I invite fred@fireflies.ai" setting does not unlock them.^[13]

Callbox Free saves every recording to your Google Drive and sets no limit on how many; only your Drive's own space does. It transcribes 5 hours a month, subject to availability, or with no limit when you bring your own speech-to-text key, and it includes the MCP server. Fireflies Free does give you a live transcript during the call, which Callbox keeps for its paid plans.^[4]

Fireflies keeps your meetings in its own cloud, on servers "in the United States and other countries." Pro stores 8,000 minutes per seat in total, about 133 hours, and Business and Enterprise have no storage cap. Storage in a location you choose is for Enterprise only.^[15][6][4]

Its Google Drive integration can copy transcripts, summaries and recordings to Drive folders you choose, automatically. Transcripts can go there on every plan, as PDF, DOCX or SRT files, and video only on Business and up. If you close your account, Fireflies deletes your data "within 30 days".^[7][15]

Callbox saves the recording itself to your own Google Drive, as an audio file and a Google Doc transcript in a folder per project. Callbox sees only the files it creates there. The files stay yours if you downgrade, cancel or delete your Callbox account.

If your company requires a SOC 2 Type II report or a HIPAA agreement, Fireflies has them and Callbox does not. Fireflies lists SOC 2 Type II and GDPR on every plan, and a HIPAA BAA on Enterprise with Private Storage.^[16][4]

Fireflies writes them for you, and Callbox does not. After each meeting Fireflies gives you an overview, bullet points and action items, limited on Free and unlimited on paid plans, and AskFred answers questions about your meetings. Extras such as AI Skills, custom summary sections, CRM autofill and AskFred during a live meeting spend AI credits. The team shares a one-time allowance of 20 credits on Free and Pro, 30 on Business and 50 on Enterprise, and more cost from $5 a month on paid plans.^[4][17]

Callbox leaves the writing to your own AI agent. Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, Cursor or a script connects to Callbox's MCP server, reads and searches your transcripts, and saves summaries, action items and notes on each recording, with the model you choose. The MCP server is on every plan, Free included.

Fireflies has an MCP server too, and it works with Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor. Its 19 documented tools search, read, share, rename and move meetings, and two of them, search and fetch, are experimental and may not be on every account. None writes notes or summaries, imports files or deletes a meeting. Fireflies' API works on Free too, with 500 requests a day shared with the MCP server after a first 14 days at Pro limits. Callbox gives API keys and webhooks only on paid plans.^[18][9][10]

Fireflies also measures sentiment and talk time per speaker. Callbox records and transcribes, and it does not score people.^[4]

Fireflies transcribes more languages. It lists more than 100 with auto-detect, though its pricing page calls English the primary language and the others beta. Business adds a beta mode for meetings that mix languages. Callbox's own engine covers 25 European languages, English and Spanish included, and 99 when you connect your own key for a Whisper large-v3 service such as OpenAI or Groq. We found no option in Fireflies to bring your own speech-to-text key.^[8][4]

Callbox records longer meetings. Fireflies stops a recording at 2 hours on Free and Pro, 3 on Business and 4 on Enterprise, and takes uploads of up to 150 minutes each. A Callbox recording runs up to 6 hours, and you can import files of up to 500 MB and 6 hours each, on every plan.^[4][19]