Meetily vs Shadow
We give Meetily a 3.2 GPA and Shadow a 2.6, out of 4.0. Meetily grades higher on the free plan and platforms. They get the same grade on value for money, features and ease of use.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Meetily
Open-source meeting recorder that transcribes on your device
Free plan · from $10/mo
Shadow
Bot-free Mac meeting recorder that runs your own AI prompts
Free plan · from $8/mo
How we grade them
| 3.2GPAMeetilyVery good | 2.6GPAShadowGood | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | BPro is $10 a user a month, billed as $120 a year, which is the typical price here. That's an early-bird figure with $25 crossed out beside it. It buys speaker names, your own templates, PDF and DOCX export and the MCP server, and each licence covers one device. | BPlus is $8 a month on the yearly plan, a little under what notetakers typically start at, or $12 monthly. It buys unlimited AI meeting notes, Meeting Skills, Action Skills and AI chat, with no minutes to count. Fair money for an app that lives on one Mac, if not a steal. |
| Free plan and trial | AThe Community Edition is free, open source and has no caps: live transcription on your machine, AI summaries and saved recordings, with no account. Most people could stay on it. You'd miss speaker names, custom templates and PDF export. | BTranscription, audio recording and Smart Screenshots are unlimited and described as free forever. But AI notes, Skills and AI chat are only listed as unlimited on Plus, and what the free plan gets of them isn't spelled out. You do get 2 weeks of Plus with the download, no card. |
| Features | BIt records system audio from Zoom, Meet, Teams, Discord, Slack Huddles and Webex with no bot, transcribes on the device, and summarises with a local model or your own API key. But calendar integration and chat with your meetings are marked as coming soon. | BIt records mic and system audio with no bot, starts and stops by itself, labels speakers on the device and screenshots the meeting window as it changes. Skills are prompts you can edit, and a shortcut gives you voice typing. But everything lives on one Mac, with no sync yet. |
| Ease of use | BInstall it and it transcribes, with no account to make. For summaries you pick a local model or paste in your own API key, which is one step more than most rivals ask. There's no rating on record, so a B at best. | BAutopilot spots a supported meeting and starts and stops listening on its own. There's no rating on record to show how people get on with it, so it stops at a B. |
| Platforms and integrations | BWindows 10 or later and Apple Silicon Macs. Intel Macs aren't supported, Linux means building it from source, and there's no phone or web app. Pro adds an MCP server, a command-line tool, a local API and webhooks, but there are no built-in connectors to apps like Notion. | DMac only, and it needs Apple Silicon and macOS 14.2 or later. Windows and other devices are on a waitlist. It does connect to Google Calendar, and a Skill can send its result to a webhook for Zapier, n8n or Make. |
| Best for | meeting notes transcribed on your own computer | Mac users who like writing their own prompts |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: Meetily and Shadow. How we grade
Where they differ
- Meetily starts at $10 per user / month, billed yearly ($120). Shadow starts at $8 per month, billed annually.
- Only Meetily lists a Windows app.
- Meetily is open source, according to its own site.
- Meetily also covers templates.
- Shadow also covers dictation, chat assistant and Markdown.
In commonFree planmacOSLocal-firstAI featuresMeeting notesTranscription
At a glance
| Meetily | Shadow | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $10 per user / month, billed yearly ($120) | $8 per month, billed annually |
| Free plan | Community Edition: free and MIT-licensed, with real-time local transcription, AI summaries from a local model or your own API key, locally saved recordings and copy-based sharing. No account needed. | Unlimited on-device transcription, audio recording and Smart Screenshots. AI meeting notes, Skills and AI chat are listed as unlimited only on Plus. |
| Free trial | 14-day free trial of Pro, no credit card required | 2 weeks of Plus included free with the download, no card required |
| macOS | ||
| Windows | ||
| Made by | Zackriya Solutions | Taper Labs, Inc. |
| Price read from | meetily.ai | shadow.do |
| Checked | Oct 5, 2026 | Oct 5, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Meetily
- People whose meetings cannot be sent to a cloud notetaker
- Developers who want MIT-licensed code and local models
- Teams that do not allow recording bots in their calls
Shadow
- Mac users who want meeting notes without a bot in the call
- People who want to write their own prompts for notes and follow-ups
- Keeping transcripts as Markdown files on their own disk
- Using one app for meeting notes and voice typing
Worth knowing
Meetily
- Desktop only: Windows 10 or later and Apple Silicon Macs on macOS 11 or later. Intel Macs are not supported, and on Linux it must be built from source.
- Speaker identification, custom templates, PDF and DOCX export, Windows GPU acceleration and the MCP server, CLI and webhooks all need Pro.
- Each Pro license covers one device for one year, and the pricing page lists Pro with yearly billing only.
- There are no built-in connectors for apps such as Notion or Jira, and chat with your meetings and calendar integration are marked as coming soon.
Shadow
- Mac only: it requires Apple Silicon and macOS 14.2 or later. Windows and other devices are on a waitlist.
- Data is stored only on the one Mac. Sync across devices is on the roadmap but not available.
- The Free plan lists transcription, recording and screenshots; unlimited AI meeting notes, Skills and AI chat need Plus.
- Skills, Ask and automatic titles send transcripts or screen context to OpenAI, Google or Anthropic. Capture, transcription and storage stay on the Mac.
Key features
Meetily
- Bot-free recording
- Captures system audio on the computer instead of sending a bot into the call, so it works with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Slack Huddles and Webex.
- On-device transcription
- Whisper and Parakeet models transcribe in real time on your machine, and audio is not uploaded. Pro adds GPU acceleration on Windows with an NVIDIA card.
- Summaries from the AI you choose
- Summaries run on a local Ollama model or on your own key for Claude, OpenAI, Groq, OpenRouter or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint. With your own key, only transcript text is sent.
- Speaker identification
- A Pro feature that labels who said what, live and on imported audio. Renaming a speaker once updates the whole transcript, and duplicate speakers can be merged.
- Templates and exports
- Pro includes 6 built-in summary templates plus your own, and exports transcripts and summaries to PDF, DOCX and Markdown. Community uses the default template.
- MCP server, CLI and webhooks
- Pro ships an MCP server, a command-line tool, a local API and signed webhooks, so assistants such as Claude or Cursor and your own scripts can search and export meetings. Off by default.
Shadow
- Bot-free capture with Autopilot
- Shadow records the microphone and system audio from the Mac, so nothing joins the call. Autopilot detects supported meetings and starts and stops listening on its own.
- On-device transcription
- Transcription and speaker labeling run on the Mac, and raw audio is not sent to an outside provider. The vendor lists around 100 languages and says English works best.
- Smart Screenshots
- Shadow finds the meeting window and captures it as the visuals change, so questions asked afterwards can cover what was shown as well as what was said.
- Meeting Skills
- Each Skill is an editable prompt that produces notes, action items, a follow-up email or a BANT breakdown. A Skill can run automatically after a meeting and send its result to a webhook.
- Action Skills and voice typing
- A keyboard shortcut in any app runs a Skill on what you say, what is on screen or the text you selected, then pastes the result at the cursor.
- Local Markdown vault
- Transcripts and Skill outputs are saved as Markdown files, with media, in a vault folder you choose on the Mac. You can keep or discard meeting audio.
Plans
Meetily
Community$0
Open-source edition: real-time local transcription, AI summaries with the default template, locally saved recordings and community support.
Pro$10
per user / month, billed yearly ($120 per user)
Speaker identification, custom AI model connector and summary templates, meeting auto-detection, more export formats, MCP, CLI and webhooks. Early-bird price; $25 is crossed out.
EnterpriseCustom
From 10 user licenses: volume discounts, dedicated support and help with custom deployment.
Shadow
Free$0
Unlimited transcription, unlimited audio recording and unlimited Smart Screenshots, described as free forever.
Plus$8
per month, billed annually; $12 billed monthly
Everything in Free, plus unlimited AI meeting notes, Meeting Skills, Action Skills and AI chat.
Ways to pay less
Meetily
No public discounts listed.
Shadow
- Annual discount
Annual billing lowers Plus to $8 a month
The pricing page's billing toggle shows Plus at $8 a month on annual billing and $12 a month on monthly billing, about a third less.
