Fathom vs Fireflies.ai (2026)
Both are notetakers built entirely on inference, both grade A on AI centrality in the GTM Tech Index, and the decision is how much you are told about what happens to a meeting after it is recorded. Fireflies states on its pricing page that customer data never trains a model and that zero retention is imposed on the model providers handling meeting content, and it marks its SOC 2 Type II attestation as available on every tier, the free one included. Fathom publishes no training position where a buyer looks and places single sign on, directory provisioning, a health information agreement and its security controls at a quoted top tier. Fathom's case is commercial confidence. It attaches a ninety day money back guarantee to every plan, gives its top tier free for the rest of a competitor's contract with migration included, offers call downloads and clips from the free tier, and maps meeting insights into named customer record fields. The sharpest difference is disclosure to the other people on the call. Fathom sells the ability to switch off its in meeting recording banner as a paid entitlement, which grades it D on recipient disclosure.
- You want to try it with your money protected. Fathom attaches a ninety day money back guarantee to every plan, publishes per user rates for four tiers at both billing frequencies above a permanent free plan, and names its concession programs with their eligibility rules, including free access for up to two years for startups backed by selected investors and ten free seats for nonprofits.
- You are leaving another notetaker in the middle of a contract. Fathom's switching offer gives its top tier free for the remainder of the competitor's contract with data migration included, so the overlap costs nothing.
- Meeting insights should land in named fields. Fathom's customer record integration maps what was said into specific named fields rather than pushing a note, its summary templates follow named sales qualification frameworks, and two external assistant products are integrated as first class destinations beside a documented interface.
- Your legal team asks whether meetings train models. Fireflies states on its pricing page that customer data is never used for AI training and imposes zero retention on the model providers it sends meeting content to, where Fathom publishes no training position on its pricing page, feature comparison or navigation.
- Security paperwork should not depend on your plan. Fireflies marks its SOC 2 Type II attestation and European data protection coverage as available on every tier including the free one, where Fathom places single sign on, directory provisioning, organization wide security controls and its health information agreement at a quoted top tier.
- You meet in many languages. Fireflies transcribes in more than a hundred languages and publishes its own site in five, where Fathom publishes no language coverage for a product whose entire function is converting speech to text.
This comparison is published by GTM Tech Index, an independent research platform that compares go to market software vendors objectively. Fathom and Fireflies.ai are each graded against the same capability taxonomy, from each vendor's own public materials, under the GTM Tech Index verification standard. No vendor pays for placement, and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Plain facts
| Fathom | Fireflies.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary category | Conversation Intelligence | Conversation Intelligence |
| Founded | Not published | Not published |
| Headquarters | Not published | Not published |
| Website | www.fathom.ai | fireflies.ai |
Side by Side
| Axis | F Fathom |
F Fireflies.ai |
|---|---|---|
|
AI Capability
|
||
| AI Centrality | ||
| Autonomy and Oversight Model | ||
| AI Disclosure and Model Transparency | ||
| Operational and Outcome Evidence | ||
|
Compliance and Risk
|
||
| Outreach Compliance Posture | ||
| Data Privacy Posture | ||
| Data Licensing and Provenance | ||
| Platform Terms Exposure | ||
| AI Safety and Data Stewardship | ||
| Recipient Disclosure and Authenticity | ||
|
Integration and Deployment
|
||
| Ecosystem and Integration Depth | ||
| Deployment Model and Data Residency | ||
| Security Certifications and Trust Center | ||
|
Commercial and Operational
|
||
| Commercial Transparency | ||
| Exit and Data Portability | ||
| Deliverability and Sending Discipline | ||
| Segment and Market Coverage | ||
The short version of each
Fathom
Fathom is an AI meeting notetaker that records calls through a bot or, on its free tier, a capture mode with no bot, and turns them into summaries, more than fifteen templates built around named sales qualification frameworks, action items, drafted follow up emails, a conversational assistant across a call or a whole account, search alerts, coaching metrics, scorecards and deal summaries. The GTM Tech Index grades it A on AI centrality, since every capability sold is inference, and B on commercial transparency, publishing per user rates for four tiers at both billing frequencies, a permanent free plan, a ninety day money back guarantee on every plan and three named concession programs. It takes B on ecosystem depth, with field level mapping into customer record systems and two external assistant products as first class integrations. It grades D on recipient disclosure, because a paying customer can rename the bot, switch off the in meeting banner and record with no bot at all, and C on stewardship, security and residency.
Source: GTM Tech Index, 2026
Fireflies.ai
Fireflies.ai is a meeting assistant used, by its own count, across more than a million companies, capturing calls on the major conferencing services or through a browser extension and producing transcripts in more than a hundred languages, summaries, topic and sentiment analysis, an assistant that answers questions across every meeting held, drafted email replies and voice agents. The GTM Tech Index grades it A on commercial transparency, because every tier carries a number, the enterprise one included, with storage, recording length and credit allowances stated, and A on AI centrality. It takes B on stewardship, stating that customer data never trains a model and imposing zero retention on its model providers, and B on security, making its SOC 2 Type II attestation and European data protection coverage available on every tier including the free one. It takes B on exit, ecosystem depth and segment coverage, with ten use cases addressed on their own pages. It grades C on recipient disclosure, residency and outcome evidence, publishing no transcription accuracy figure.
Source: GTM Tech Index, 2026
Common questions
Is Fathom better than Fireflies?
Fireflies publishes more of what a security or legal review needs: a training commitment, a SOC 2 attestation on every tier and a price on every tier, which is why it grades A on commercial transparency and B on stewardship, security and exit in the GTM Tech Index. Fathom offers stronger commercial protection, with a ninety day money back guarantee on every plan and a free switching offer, and deeper field mapping into customer record systems. Both grade A on AI centrality.
Is Fathom free?
Fathom runs a permanent free plan with unlimited recording, instant summaries and unlimited call downloads and clips, with advanced summaries and the assistant capped at limited use without a number stated. Fireflies also runs a permanent free plan, with its interface and SOC 2 coverage included. Both price their paid tiers per seat. Fathom's advertised annual saving of twenty five percent or more holds only on its highest priced tier and computes to about twenty and twenty one percent on the two below it. Graded by GTM Tech Index against seventeen capability axes from each vendor's own published materials, verified September 27, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Can other participants tell Fathom is recording?
By default, yes: a bot appears in the participant list and an in meeting banner announces the recording. Fathom also sells a custom bot name and the ability to switch off the banner as paid entitlements, and its free tier offers capture with no bot at all, so a paying customer can record with no visible signal. Fireflies joins visibly by default and lets the bot be renamed or replaced by extension capture. Neither describes a consent prompt or a consent record. Graded by GTM Tech Index against seventeen capability axes from each vendor's own published materials, verified September 27, 2026. No vendor pays for placement.
Does Fathom or Fireflies train AI on my meetings?
Fireflies states on its pricing page that customer data is never used for AI training and that zero retention applies at its model providers, though the statement sits on a marketing panel and its two wordings differ between data and personal data. Fathom publishes no training position where a buyer looks first, which is why the GTM Tech Index grades it C on stewardship. Ask both for the commitment in the agreement, worded to cover recordings and transcripts.
How does the GTM Tech Index grade Fathom and Fireflies.ai?
Both are graded on the same seventeen capability and compliance axes from public sources, Fathom at a documented depth of sixteen and Fireflies.ai at seventeen. Fathom takes A on AI centrality, B on commercial transparency and ecosystem depth, C on thirteen and D on recipient disclosure. Fireflies.ai takes A on AI centrality and commercial transparency, B on security, stewardship, exit, ecosystem depth and segment coverage, and C on ten. The index publishes no composite score and declares no winner.
Related comparisons
Other published head to head assessments involving these vendors or their closest peers. The full set for this category is on the Conversation Intelligence page.
The shared silence is where recordings sit and for how long. Neither names a hosting region or offers a residency election, and at both the control over how long other people's recorded speech is kept is sold at the top: custom retention, private storage and audit logs at Fireflies' quoted tier, custom retention policies at Fathom's.
Fathom adds a question of its own, since its bot free mode captures on the desktop while its bot runs in the vendor's cloud, two data paths with potentially different geographies. The second silence is consent. Both record external participants who never bought either product, both let the bot's display name be changed, both offer capture with no bot present, and neither describes a consent prompt, a jurisdictional consent mode or a record that consent was obtained.
Fathom goes a step further by selling the removal of its in meeting banner, so a paying customer can record with no named bot, no banner and no participant list entry. The benign reading is that both place the consent obligation on the customer, where the law puts it. Ask both in writing what an external participant sees before recording begins, and where recordings are stored.