The short version: Fireflies.ai is the pick for a sales or research team that needs to search what was said months ago. tl;dv is the pick for a team that wants meeting recording and search without a per-minute budget.
Head to head
| Fireflies.ai | tl;dv | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Platforms | Web, Zoom, Teams, Google Meet | Web, Zoom, Teams, Google Meet |
| Best for | A sales or research team that needs to search what was said months ago. | A team that wants meeting recording and search without a per-minute budget. |
| Weakness | Storage and transcription minutes are capped per seat, and the bot joining every call is a social cost the pricing page does not mention. | The free plan is unlimited where it is cheap and metered where it matters: ten AI notes and five Ask AI queries, then the upgrade prompt. |
The verdict
Fireflies.ai is freemium; tl;dv is freemium. The marketing on both sides blurs this, but they were built for different jobs, and most people comparing them only need one of the two.
Where Fireflies.ai falls down: Storage and transcription minutes are capped per seat, and the bot joining every call is a social cost the pricing page does not mention.
Where tl;dv falls down: The free plan is unlimited where it is cheap and metered where it matters: ten AI notes and five Ask AI queries, then the upgrade prompt.
If you genuinely need both, you are the rare case where running two tools is cheaper than picking one badly.
Frequently asked
Is Fireflies.ai or tl;dv better?
Neither in general. Fireflies.ai fits a sales or research team that needs to search what was said months ago. tl;dv fits a team that wants meeting recording and search without a per-minute budget. The weakness row in the table above is where they actually separate.
Is tl;dv cheaper than Fireflies.ai?
Fireflies.ai is freemium, tl;dv is freemium. The sticker price is rarely the bill — check the pricing section of each review.
Can I use both Fireflies.ai and tl;dv?
Plenty of teams do, usually with one as the system of record and the other for a specific workflow. It doubles the migration cost later, so pick a side before year two.
Read the full reviews: Fireflies.ai and tl;dv.