Comparison

Fireflies vs Read AI

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Fireflies

This AI-powered tool automatically records, transcribes, and summarizes your voice conversations and meetings. It allows you to search through transcripts, extract key information like action items, and collaborate with your team by sharing soundbites and insights. Analyze meeting performance to improve various business processes.

Highlights
  • Automatic meeting recording and transcription
  • AI-powered search for key topics and action items
  • Meeting summarization in minutes
  • Integration with video conferencing and collaboration apps
  • Conversation intelligence for performance analysis
  • Create and share meeting soundbites
Features
Read full description

Fireflies Talk now on mobile. Tap the mic and dictate into any app, in 90+ languages. Unlimited on every plan. Fireflies.ai helps your team transcribe, summarize, search, and analyze voice conversations. Automatically record and transcribe meetings - Transcribe meetings across several video-conferencing apps, dialers, and audio files. - Easily invite Fireflies.ai notetaker to meetings on your calendar. - Fireflies captures video + audio and generates transcripts in minutes. - Integrates with apps like Google Meet, Zoom, Teams, Webex, RingCentral, Aircall, and other platforms. Find anything with AI-powered search - Review a 1-hour meeting in 5 minutes. - With 1 click, see action items, tasks, questions, and other key metrics. - Filter and listen to key topics discussed in your meetings. Collaborate with your co-workers - Create soundbites and easily share the most memorable moments from meetings. - Use AskFred to answer questions, summarize key moments, or create content. - Send meeting notes to your favorite collaboration apps like Slack, Notion, Asana, and more. Analyze meetings using Conversation Intelligence - Track speaker talk time, sentiment, monologues, and other key metrics to coach teammates. - Identify objections, competitors, and other topics that you can customize. - Measure performance and improve your sales, recruiting, and internal processes.

About

Read AI

This app records audio from your device and generates real-time AI-powered transcripts and summaries. It's ideal for capturing lectures, meetings, or brainstorming sessions, providing comprehensive reports that can be shared or kept private.

Highlights
  • Live transcription and summaries
  • Speaker detection
  • In-person meeting recording
  • Integration with communication channels
  • Cross-platform sync
  • Meeting notifications
Read full description

Record any in-person conversation and get a transcript, summary, and action items when you're done. Read AI turns your iPhone into an AI notetaker for client meetings, interviews, lectures, and brainstorms. Open Read AI, tap record, and stay in the conversation. Read transcribes and summarizes in real time, then builds a full report you can keep private or share with others. Your in-person notes appear next to your Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams meeting reports, so everything you discussed lives in one place. Key Features: Live Transcription and Summaries Follow along with a real-time transcript and get a concise summary at the end, so you never have to ask what was decided. Speaker Detection Read AI tells speakers apart, so you can see who said what. Built for In-Person Meetings Record face-to-face meetings, classes, and brainstorming sessions without opening a laptop. Easy Sharing Send your notes to Gmail, Outlook, Slack, Teams, and your CRM to share and review them. Sync Across Devices Access your notes and summaries on any device, alongside your Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams meetings. Meeting Reminders Get notified before upcoming meetings, when a new report is ready, and with a recap before recurring meetings, so you never forget to record.

Screenshots

Fireflies4 screens
Read AI4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is monetization model: Read AI at free against Fireflies's freemium. Read AI also leads on review sentiment (69% vs 54%). Fireflies's advantage is update cadence (every 8 days vs every 3 weeks) and ratings volume (5.4K vs 1.1K). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for Fireflies against 4.9 for Read AI. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Fireflies has 5.4K ratings behind it against 1.1K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 54% of Fireflies's written reviews are positive against 69% of Read AI's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Fireflies ships an update every 8 days, Read AI every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and November 4, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Fireflies versus Read AI: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterFirefliesRead AI
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (5.4K ratings)4.9 (1.1K ratings) — better
Positive reviews54.2% of reviews68.5% of reviews — better
Number of ratings5.4K — better1.1K
Update frequencyEvery 8 days — betterEvery 3 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreemiumFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.1 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size102 MB38 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperFireflies.aiRead AI

Customer experience

Fireflies

All ratings5,367 ratings
Positive95.8%
Neutral1.7%
Negative2.5%
Written reviews131 reviews
Positive54.2%
Neutral4.6%
Negative41.2%

Read AI

All ratings1,014 ratings
Positive98.1%
Neutral0.7%
Negative1.2%
Written reviews54 reviews
Positive68.5%
Neutral1.9%
Negative29.6%

User reviews

Fireflies

From 5.4K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Excellent transcription and summary quality
  • 👍 User-friendly and pleasant to use
  • 💡 Great AI-powered features
  • 🚀 Efficient for meeting notes and task management
  • 👍 Helpful customer service

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Inconsistent recording and transcription reliability
  • 🔒 Privacy concerns with calendar access
  • 🐛 Buggy and glitchy performance
  • 🔒 Forced login with Google/Microsoft accounts
  • 🐛 Lost recordings and corrupted files

Read AI

From 1.1K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Productivity booster
  • 👍 Great app
  • 👍 Useful features
  • 👍 Convenient mobile access
  • 👍 Helpful for in-person meetings

Room to improve

  • 🔒 Privacy concerns
  • 🐛 Buggy with playback and other functions
  • 🐛 App loading issues

Bugs and requests

Fireflies

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Crashes during live recordings
  • Recordings disappearing after upload
  • Inability to log in from iPhone
  • Transcription failures for some meetings

Requested features

4 requests
  • On-device settings for audio controls
  • Automatic meeting title generation
  • Improved summarization of key contributions
  • Standalone login option without calendar access

Read AI

Reported bugs

1 issue
  • Uploading issues causing lost recordings

Requested features

4 requests
  • Chromecast and AirPlay support
  • Full-screen video playback
  • Cloud sync for transcripts and summaries
  • Better mobile support and file format compatibility

In-app purchases

None

Fireflies

No in-app purchases

None

Read AI

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Fireflies free?
Fireflies is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Read AI free?
Read AI is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Fireflies or Read AI?
Read AI is rated higher. Fireflies averages 4.8 out of 5 from 5.4K ratings, while Read AI averages 4.9 from 1.1K ratings.
Do Fireflies or Read AI have ads?
Neither Fireflies nor Read AI shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Fireflies or Read AI?
Fireflies ships an update every 8 days, and Read AI every 3 weeks. Most recently, Fireflies was updated on November 3, 2026 and Read AI on November 4, 2026.

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