Pick Granola if you want automatic meeting notes, transcripts, follow-up drafts and AI chat across your meetings, on Mac, Windows, iOS or Android, with a free plan. Pick AuraCloak if you want live answers during calls on Windows with nothing recorded or transcribed, no account, your own model or ChatGPT login, and a $49 one-time price. Checked October 2026.
Is AuraCloak a Granola alternative?
Partly. Granola and AuraCloak share one belief: no bot should join your meeting. They act on it differently.
Granola is an AI notepad. It listens to your computer's audio in the background, transcribes the meeting, and when the call ends it expands your rough notes into a clean write-up with action items. It keeps that history (30 days on the free plan, unlimited on Business) and lets you chat with the AI across all of it.
AuraCloak never transcribes the call. It's an always-on-top chat window on Windows that's excluded from screen capture. You ask it something during the meeting, it answers, and the meeting itself leaves no trace in the app. People who look for a "Granola alternative" because they want a better note-taker should look elsewhere. People who realize they wanted help in the moment, not notes afterward, are who this page is for.
Granola vs AuraCloak at a glance
| AuraCloak | Granola | |
|---|---|---|
| Main job | Answer your questions during calls and work | Transcribe meetings and write up your notes |
| Meeting bot | None | None, uses device audio |
| Transcribes the call | No | Yes |
| Free plan | No | Basic, $0, 30 days of meeting history |
| Paid price | $9/month or $49 once | Business $14/user/month; Enterprise $35/user/month |
| Platforms | Windows 10 (2004+) and 11 | macOS 14+, Windows, iOS, Android |
| Account | None | Google or Microsoft sign-in required |
| AI models | Your choice: OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, GitHub Copilot, Azure OpenAI, custom | Auto-selected on Basic; model selection on Business |
| Audio stored | No (mic input only, optional offline Whisper) | No, per Granola; transcripts and notes are stored |
| Hidden from screen share | Yes, Windows capture exclusion | Not applicable |
How we compared
We make AuraCloak. Granola's details come from granola.ai, its pricing and security pages, and its help center, all read on October 11, 2026. We didn't find much first-hand Reddit discussion indexed, so user sentiment below is drawn from review sites and we say so.
Pricing: Granola vs AuraCloak
| Plan | Price | Key limits |
|---|---|---|
| Granola Basic | $0 | 30 days of meeting history, auto model selection only |
| Granola Business | $14/user/month | Unlimited history, model choice, briefs, follow-up emails, API, MCP |
| Granola Enterprise | $35/user/month | SSO, SCIM, admin policies, HIPAA workspaces |
| AuraCloak | $9/month or $49 once | Every feature; AI paid to your provider or $0 extra in browser mode |
A year of Granola Business for one person is $168. AuraCloak lifetime is $49, but that comparison only makes sense if you don't need notes. Granola includes its AI; AuraCloak connects to yours. More detail in our Granola pricing guide and on the AuraCloak pricing page.
Want answers during the call, not notes after it? AuraCloak is $49 once on Windows.
Get AuraCloakPrivacy compared
Granola's security page says it doesn't store meeting audio (mobile caches it temporarily), stores transcripts and notes in a US-hosted AWS environment, and has a SOC 2 Type 2 report. One detail worth knowing: on consumer plans Granola trains on anonymized data unless you opt out in Settings. Enterprise has training off by default. And because there's no bot, the other people in the meeting don't get a signal that a transcript exists, so telling them is on you.
AuraCloak keeps less because it does less. No account, no telemetry, no chat sync, no meeting transcript. API keys are encrypted with Windows DPAPI on your PC, and prompts go directly to the provider you chose. Voice input is your own microphone only, and Local Whisper can transcribe it offline with no audio leaving the machine. The overlay is excluded from Windows screen capture, so Zoom, Teams and Meet in a browser leave it out of a share. A phone camera aimed at your screen still sees it.
Granola on Windows vs AuraCloak on Windows
Granola now runs on Windows as well as macOS, iOS and Android, so "Granola for Windows" isn't a reason to switch anymore. Our Granola for Windows guide covers the install.
Where AuraCloak is different on a PC is the overlay itself. It floats above everything with an opacity slider, click-through mode (Alt+C) and global hotkeys you can remap in auracloak.ini. Take a screenshot of whatever's on any monitor with Alt+S and ask about it. Granola's window is a notepad, which is the right shape for notes but not for glancing at an answer mid-sentence.
One more practical difference: Granola's window shows up in a full-screen share like any normal app, so people who take notes during a demo usually share a single window instead. AuraCloak's window is left out of full-screen shares by design, so you can share your whole desktop and keep the overlay open.
What users say about Granola
Reviews are mostly warm. People like that no bot joins and that the notes read like their own. The criticisms we saw were about defaults rather than quality: training on data is on unless you opt out, link sharing can spread notes further than intended, and consent is entirely the user's job. An incident where a third-party key in an iOS beta exposed some beta users' transcripts also comes up in reviews; reviewers say it was fixed quickly.
Who should choose Granola, and who should choose AuraCloak
Choose Granola if:
- You want meeting notes written for you, without a bot.
- You want to search and chat across past meetings.
- You use a Mac, an iPhone or Android, or a mix.
- The free plan's 30-day history is enough, or $14 a month is fine.
Choose AuraCloak if:
- You want private, live answers during calls on Windows.
- You don't want any transcript of the meeting to exist.
- You want to choose your model, or use ChatGPT Plus, Claude Pro or GitHub Copilot.
- You'd rather not sign in with Google or Microsoft, and you like paying once.
Plenty of people run both: Granola for the record, AuraCloak for the moment. See the full list on our alternatives page, and the Cluely alternative page for the overlay often compared with Granola.
FAQ
Is AuraCloak a note-taker like Granola?
No. AuraCloak doesn't transcribe, record or summarize meetings. It's a private AI chat overlay for Windows that answers what you ask. If you want meeting notes, Granola is the better choice.
Does Granola use a meeting bot?
No. Granola transcribes your computer's audio in the background, so no bot joins Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams. AuraCloak doesn't use a bot either, and doesn't capture call audio at all.
Is Granola free?
Yes, Granola's Basic plan is $0 with 30 days of meeting history, checked October 2026. Business is $14 per user per month and Enterprise is $35.
Does Granola store audio?
Granola's security page says it doesn't store meeting audio on desktop and only caches it temporarily on mobile. It does store transcripts and notes, in a US-hosted AWS environment.
Can I use Granola and AuraCloak together?
Yes. Granola writes up the meeting afterward and AuraCloak gives you private answers during it. On Windows, both run side by side.