Fireflies joins the meeting. Second stays on your Mac.

When you use Fireflies, everyone in the meeting can see the Notetaker bot in the participant list. For internal meetings that's usually fine. For client calls, investor conversations, or anything sensitive, it adds a layer of friction that's hard to avoid.

IT teams at some organisations block meeting bots entirely — which means Fireflies stops working. Second captures system audio at the OS level. No browser extension, no bot, no dependency on what your client's IT policy allows.

Fireflies uploads your meeting audio to their servers for transcription and processing. That's standard for cloud-based tools. If your work involves confidential conversations — legal, finance, healthcare, anything regulated — it's worth knowing where your audio goes.

Second processes audio locally on your Mac. Nothing is uploaded. The transcript lives in a markdown file next to your note, on your device, under your control.