Mumr vs Granola
A free, 100% local Granola alternative for Mac
Granola is a polished, bot-free AI notepad — but your transcripts live in its cloud and serious use is a paid per-seat subscription. Mumr does the same job (record → transcribe → summarise) entirely on your Mac, for free, with no account.
The short version
- Both are bot-free — neither joins the call as a visible participant.
- Mumr keeps capture and transcription on your Mac; Granola uploads transcripts to its US cloud and trains on anonymised data by default.
- Mumr is free with no per-seat fee or history cap. Granola's free tier limits meeting history; unlimited use is $14/user/month.
- Pick Granola for Windows/iOS, sync, managed AI, and team integrations. Pick Mumr for free, private, Mac-native notes you own.
Mumr vs Granola at a glance
| Mumr | Granola | |
|---|---|---|
| Price for meeting notes | Free — no per-seat fee, no history cap | Free tier (limited history); Business $14/user/mo, Enterprise $35/user/mo |
| Capture & transcription | 100% on your Mac (Apple Speech / WhisperKit / Parakeet) | Audio captured locally; transcript sent to the cloud and transcribed there |
| Where your data lives | Only on your Mac — no Mumr server | Transcripts stored in Granola's US cloud (AWS) |
| Account required | No | Yes |
| Bot joins the call | No | No (bot-free) |
| Summary AI | Your choice: Apple Intelligence (on-device), your own Anthropic/OpenAI key, or a local CLI | Managed cloud AI (OpenAI / Anthropic), no setup |
| Trains on your data | Never | Anonymised data by default (opt-out in Settings) |
| Platforms | macOS 15+ | macOS, Windows, iOS |
Pricing and features verified against granola.ai/pricing and granola.ai/security on 28 June 2026. Granola's plans changed in 2026; check their site for the current numbers.
Where Granola is the better choice
Granola is a mature, well-funded product, and there are real reasons to choose it. It runs on Windows and iOS as well as Mac and syncs your notes across devices — Mumr is Mac-only. It ships managed AI summaries with zero setup (no API key to bring), has genuine team features (shared folders, centralised billing, SSO on Enterprise), deep integrations (Notion, Slack, HubSpot, Attio, Zapier, plus MCP and an API), and an AI chat across your entire meeting history. If you want notes that "just work" everywhere and push into the tools your team already uses, Granola is more capable.
Where Mumr wins
Mumr's whole point is that your meeting never leaves your Mac. Capture and transcription are 100% on-device (Apple Speech, WhisperKit, or FluidAudio Parakeet) — the audio and transcript are never uploaded to a Mumr server and never stored in anyone's cloud. There's no account and no Mumr backend at all. It's genuinely free: no per-seat fee, and no lifetime cap on how many meetings you can keep.
Summaries are bring-your-own-AI: Apple Intelligence on-device (macOS 26+), your own Anthropic or OpenAI key, or a local claude/codex CLI — so you control the model and the cost, and with Apple Intelligence or a local CLI you can summarise entirely offline. For confidential calls — legal, healthcare, hiring, M&A — where you can't send transcripts to a vendor's cloud or have a model train on them, that difference is the whole decision.
Which should you choose?
- Choose Mumr if you're on a Mac, want it free, and want your recordings, transcripts and summaries to stay on your machine with no account and no cloud.
- Choose Granola if you need Windows or iOS, cross-device sync, managed AI with no setup, team collaboration, or integrations into Notion / Slack / HubSpot.
Try the free, local one
Mumr records your meetings on your Mac, transcribes them on-device, and summarises with the AI you choose. No account, no Mumr cloud.
Download for MacFAQ
Is there a free Granola alternative for Mac?
Yes — Mumr is a free Mac meeting recorder with no per-seat fee and no meeting-history cap. It records the call, transcribes it on your Mac, and writes a summary with the AI you choose. Granola has a free Basic tier too, but it stores your transcripts in its cloud and limits meeting history.
How is Mumr more private than Granola?
Granola captures audio locally but uploads the transcript to its US cloud, transcribes via third-party services, and trains on anonymised data by default. Mumr keeps both capture and transcription on your Mac, never stores anything on a Mumr server, and has no account. With Apple Intelligence or a local CLI you can even summarise offline. See our local transcription on Mac page.
Does Mumr join the call like a bot?
No. Like Granola, Mumr is bot-free — it captures your microphone plus the meeting's system audio directly on your Mac, so nothing appears in the participant list. See how to record a meeting on a Mac.
When should I pick Granola instead?
Pick Granola if you need Windows or iOS, cross-device sync, managed AI with zero setup, team collaboration, or deep integrations like Notion, Slack and HubSpot. Mumr is Mac-only and focused on free, local, private meeting capture.