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Whisply and Granola, two different categories
Granola writes great notes after the meeting. Whisply puts a real-time AI overlay on your screen while the meeting is happening. Same operating system, different jobs.
Granola is a Mac notetaker that produces a polished transcript and summary after the call. Whisply is a real-time AI overlay that answers questions silently during the call.
- Granola runs after the conversation, Whisply runs during it, and neither one joins as a bot in the participant list.
- Whisply summons with Cmd+Return from the menu bar, sees the screen, hears the room, and replies in the overlay only you can see.
- Granola is a beautifully designed notes product. Whisply is a different category, a live assistant that also handles interviews, exams, and Computer Use.
Whisply uses macOS system-level content protection by default, so the overlay stays out of screen sharing, screen recording, and most proctoring capture frames. It is summoned with Cmd+Return from the menu bar and ships on macOS 13 Ventura or later, Apple Silicon and Intel.
Whisply vs Granola, at a glance
| Whisply | Granola | |
|---|---|---|
| When help arrives | Live, during the call | After the call, in notes |
| Bot in the call | No, on-device overlay | No, on-device capture |
| How you summon it | Cmd+Return from menu bar | Open the Granola app |
| Primary output | Real-time answers in overlay | Polished post-meeting notes |
| Platforms | Mac only, macOS 13+ | Mac focused |
| Capture isolation | Out of screen share by default | Not designed for capture isolation |
| Other use cases | Interviews, exams, Computer Use | Meeting notes and recall |
Two products solving two different parts of the meeting problem
Granola is a Mac notetaker. You take the call, Granola records and transcribes through the system, and afterward you get clean notes you can edit, share, and search. The design is genuinely good. The team behind it cares about the writing experience in a way most enterprise notetakers do not.
Whisply is a real-time AI overlay. While the call is still happening, you hit Cmd+Return and a small window appears in front of everything, visible only to you. You type or speak a question, Whisply hears the meeting and sees what is on screen, and the answer appears in the overlay before the conversation has moved on. There are no notes to read tomorrow because the help arrived today.
These are not the same category. Picking between them is closer to picking between a voice recorder and an earpiece than picking between two notetakers. If you want both, you can run both.
When the help arrives
With Granola the value lands after. The summary, the action items, the searchable archive, all of it is the post-meeting artifact. That is exactly what some people want, especially product managers and founders who run back-to-back calls and need a clean record to refer back to next week.
Whisply lands its value mid-sentence. You forgot the metric, you cannot remember the customer name, the interviewer asked about a framework you read once two years ago. Cmd+Return, type the question, read the answer, keep talking. The conversation never pauses because you never had to leave it.
Both timings are legitimate. A retrospective for your team is a recap problem. A negotiation with a single number on the line is a real-time problem. The two products are tuned for different ends of that spectrum.
How they sit on macOS
Granola runs as a Mac app focused on notes. The interface is its homepage. You open it, you see your meetings, you read and edit. The product invites you in.
Whisply lives in the menu bar and stays out of the way until you summon it. There is no main window to open every day. The hotkey is the front door. The overlay floats above whatever app you are in, whether that is Zoom, Google Meet, a browser-based exam, or a CAD program, and it disappears the moment you are done. Screen Recording permission lets it see what you see. Microphone permission lets it hear the room. Accessibility permission, on Pro Undetected, lets it move the mouse and type for you when you ask.
Both run only on macOS. Whisply requires macOS 13 Ventura or later and works on Apple Silicon and Intel. If your team is half on Windows, neither is the right pick for them.
Privacy posture
Granola does not join your calls as a participant. There is no bot to explain to the other side. That alone puts it in a different bucket from the Otter and Fireflies generation of notetakers, and it is a meaningful design choice.
Whisply also does not join the call. It listens through your Mac and shows answers in an overlay only you can see. By default that overlay uses macOS content protection, so it stays out of screen shares, screen recordings, and most proctoring capture frames. The other side of the call sees you. They do not see the overlay, and they do not see a third participant called Notetaker.
Where the two products differ is what they do with the audio. Granola is in the business of storing and structuring a transcript so you can come back to it. Whisply is in the business of answering once and moving on. Different jobs, different data shapes.
Pricing, plainly
Granola publishes a free tier and paid plans on its site, with team pricing for organizations that want shared workspaces. Pricing changes from time to time, so the source of truth is granola.ai.
Whisply has a free tier with daily message limits and the core meeting-assist features. Pro is $19.99 per month monthly, or $11.99 per month on the annual plan. Pro Undetected, which adds Computer Use and the armed proctor-resistant mode, is $149.99 per month monthly, or $44.99 per month annual. Models are included. You do not bring an API key.
If your whole need is well-structured meeting notes, Granola is the simpler purchase. If your need is help in the moment, plus interviews, plus exams, plus letting the assistant click around your Mac for you, Whisply is the one priced for that scope.
What Whisply does that a notetaker is not built to do
Whisply was not built only for meetings. The same overlay handles a live job interview, where the assistant hears the question and shows you the structured answer in the corner of your screen. It handles a coding screen, where you can ask about a function the moment it appears in the IDE. It handles an online proctored exam on Pro Undetected, where the overlay stays out of the capture frame and you remain private to yourself.
On Pro Undetected, Computer Use lets Whisply take small actions on your Mac when you ask, like opening tabs, filling forms, or pulling a file into the conversation. That is a different surface area from any notetaker. It is closer to a quiet operator sitting next to you than a recorder sitting in the room.
None of this is what Granola is for, and that is the point. Granola is sharper at notes because notes are what it is built for. Whisply is sharper at live assist because live assist is what it is built for.
Full feature matrix
| Feature | Whisply | Granola |
|---|---|---|
| Real-time answers during a call | Yes, overlay replies in seconds | No, post-call summary |
| Post-meeting notes and summaries | Lightweight notes from the session | Polished, editable notes as the main product |
| Joins the call as a bot participant | Never | No bot, on-device capture |
| Hotkey to summon | Cmd+Return from the menu bar | Open app to interact |
| Sees what is on screen | Yes, with Screen Recording permission | Reads audio, not on-screen context |
| Hears the meeting | Yes, with Microphone permission | Yes, that is the core input |
| Stays out of screen sharing | Yes, system-level content protection by default | Not a designed feature |
| Computer Use (clicks, types for you) | Yes, on Pro Undetected with Accessibility permission | No |
| Job interview assist | Yes, built for it | Not the use case |
| Online proctored exam support | Yes on Pro Undetected, broad list of supported proctors | Not designed for exam contexts |
| Search across past meetings | Limited, focus is live | Strong, transcripts are the product |
| Editable rich-text notes | Basic | Premium, this is the craft |
| Share a meeting recap with a link | Yes, lightweight share | Yes, share polished notes |
| Operating systems | macOS 13 Ventura or later, Apple Silicon and Intel | Mac focused |
| Bring your own API key | No, models included | Models included |
| Free tier | Yes, with daily message limits | Yes |
| Paid pricing entry point | Pro at $19.99/mo monthly or $11.99/mo annual | Published on granola.ai, changes over time |
| Highest tier | Pro Undetected at $149.99/mo monthly or $44.99/mo annual | Team plans |
| Primary buyer | Individuals in high-stakes live conversations | Founders, PMs, anyone living in back-to-back calls |
| Best at | Answers in the moment | Notes after the moment |
When to pick Granola
Pick Granola when your real problem is the recap, not the live moment. If you spend your days in back-to-back internal calls, customer interviews, and product reviews, and what you actually need afterward is a clean, editable, searchable document you can paste into Notion or send to a teammate, Granola is the more focused tool for that job. The notes interface is genuinely well-designed, the editing experience is calm, and the way it weaves a transcript into your own structured outline is something Whisply does not try to do. If a teammate asks for the meeting notes and you want to send them a polished page in one click, Granola is the right pick.
Related questions
Is Whisply a Granola clone?
No. Granola is a Mac notetaker that produces polished notes and summaries after the meeting. Whisply is a real-time AI overlay that answers questions during the meeting, in a window only you can see. Different category, different timing, different output. The two can coexist on the same Mac without overlapping much.
Can I import my Granola notes into Whisply?
Not directly. Whisply is not a notes archive, so there is no library to import a Granola backlog into. If you want past Granola notes in front of you during a live conversation, paste the relevant section into the Whisply overlay and ask follow-up questions from there. The overlay reads what you give it.
Does Granola work on Mac?
Yes, Granola is Mac focused and well-loved there. Whisply is also Mac only, requires macOS 13 Ventura or later, and works on both Apple Silicon and Intel. If your team is split across macOS and Windows, neither product covers the Windows side today.
Why does Whisply not put a bot in the call?
A bot in the participant list changes the conversation. People perform for the transcript, candor drops, and you end up recording colleagues who never agreed to be recorded. Whisply listens through your own Mac instead, so no third participant appears and the other side sees only you. The help is private to you during the call.
Will the other side of the call see the Whisply overlay if I share my screen?
By default, no. The Whisply overlay uses macOS system-level content protection, so it stays out of screen sharing, screen recording, and most proctoring capture frames. You can share your full screen on Zoom or Meet and the overlay remains private to your own display.
Can Whisply replace Granola for meeting notes?
Partly, not fully. Whisply can produce a lightweight recap from a session, but the craft of polished, structured, editable notes is what Granola is built for. If post-meeting documentation is the core job, Granola is the sharper tool. If live answers are the core job, Whisply is the sharper tool. Many people run both.
Does Whisply transcribe and store every meeting?
Whisply is built around answering live questions rather than archiving every conversation. It listens to help you in the moment, not to maintain a long-term transcript library. Granola is the opposite shape, and that is by design on both sides.
Try Whisply free.
Mac only. macOS 13 or later. No bot in your calls.