The short answer
Granola transcribes meeting audio locally in real time, then sends the transcript and your notes to its cloud, where an AI model polishes them and the notes are stored on Granola’s servers. It doesn’t use meeting bots, the notes are genuinely good, and it integrates with tools like Notion, Slack and HubSpot.
MeetIT does the same core job — record, transcribe, write structured notes — but the transcription, the AI and the storage all run on your own machine by default. Nothing is uploaded, there’s no account, and the files are yours.
Where your data actually goes
This is the real difference, and it’s easy to miss. Granola’s transcription happens on-device, which is great — but the transcript and the AI-enhanced notes are sent to and stored in Granola’s cloud (a US-hosted environment). Granola says it doesn’t let third-party AI providers train on your data, though by default it trains on anonymised data to improve the product unless you opt out.
With MeetIT, the transcript never leaves your laptop, the AI that writes the summary runs locally, and the notes are saved as files on your disk. No AI company trains on your content, and there’s nothing on someone else’s server to leak, subpoena or change terms on.
What Granola is good at
Granola is polished and fast for people in meetings all day: live note enhancement, a clean editor, team sharing and integrations into the tools sales and ops teams already use. If your workflow is cloud-native and collaboration matters more than data residency, Granola is a strong pick.
It’s a subscription (a free tier with limited history, then paid plans per user), and it needs the desktop app running where the meeting audio plays — the same as MeetIT.
How MeetIT is different
MeetIT is built for people who can’t — or would rather not — send meeting content to a cloud: legal, healthcare, finance, research, or anyone handling confidential conversations. It records mic and system audio, transcribes with Whisper locally, and writes minutes with decisions and action items, all on-device. It works offline and needs no account to start.
It also does something Granola doesn’t: turn a recording into study materials — summaries, flashcards and quizzes with real spaced repetition — which makes it useful for lectures as well as meetings. The trade-off is that MeetIT is built around your own machine rather than being a cloud collaboration hub.
Which should you choose?
Choose Granola if you want a polished, cloud-based notepad with team sharing and integrations, and you’re comfortable with transcripts and notes living on its servers.
Choose MeetIT if you want everything — transcription, AI and storage — to stay on your device, prefer owning your files over a subscription, need it to work offline, or handle conversations that simply can’t go to the cloud.
Frequently asked questions
Doesn’t Granola already transcribe locally?
Yes — Granola’s transcription runs on your device. But the transcript and your AI-enhanced notes are then sent to and stored in Granola’s cloud. MeetIT keeps the transcription, the AI processing and the storage all local, so nothing is uploaded.
Is MeetIT a private Granola alternative?
Yes. By default MeetIT processes and stores everything on your own machine, with no account and no upload, which makes it suited to confidential, legal, medical or regulated conversations.
Does MeetIT work offline?
Yes. Because transcription and the note-writing AI both run locally, MeetIT works without a connection — unlike a tool that has to reach a cloud to process or store your notes.
Does MeetIT do study materials like flashcards?
Yes. MeetIT can turn a recording into summaries, key concepts, flashcards and quizzes with spaced repetition (FSRS), each linked back to the moment in the recording — useful for lectures, not just meetings.