People search for a Fireflies alternative for different reasons, and live translation is one of the more specific ones. Fireflies is good at what happens after the call. Translation during the call is a different job. The Fireflies facts below come from the Fireflies Knowledge Base, read on 30 October 2026, with a link next to each.
What Fireflies does
Fireflies captures a meeting and turns it into text. There are a few ways it gets the audio.
The usual one is the Fireflies.ai Notetaker, a bot that joins the meeting as a participant. You invite it by adding fred@fireflies.ai to the calendar event, or let it join on its own based on your auto-join settings, according to How to Invite Fireflies to Meetings. The Fireflies joining FAQ says it "appears as Fireflies.ai Notetaker," and that if there's a waiting room or lobby, a host has to admit it.
There are bot-free routes too. The same FAQ lists a Chrome extension for Google Meet only. The desktop app has a Take Notes mode that, per Bot vs. No Bot, "captures system audio from your device without joining." In that mode speakers show up as Speaker 1 and Speaker 2, and no audio or video is saved.
On languages, Fireflies says it "supports transcription and summaries in 100+ languages" (supported languages). A Multi-Language mode, marked beta, handles 60+ languages in one conversation. During the call, Live Assist shows live notes and the transcript as people speak, on Google Meet, Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
Does Fireflies translate meetings in real time?
Not as far as its own documentation goes. The pages on supported languages and on Live Assist describe transcription and live notes, and neither mentions translation.
What Fireflies does document is changing a meeting's language afterwards. Re-transcribing a meeting in a different language generates "a new transcript and summary in the selected language." Only the meeting's host or owner can do it, a meeting can be re-transcribed at most 3 times, and manual edits to the old transcript are lost. That's useful for the record. It doesn't help you follow the conversation while it's on.
SubLive is not a note-taker
This matters before you compare anything. SubLive is a Chrome extension that shows translated subtitles while people talk. It doesn't record audio or video, it doesn't write meeting notes, and it doesn't send anything into the meeting. If your team relies on Fireflies for recordings and notes, SubLive won't take that over.
What it does have is text you can keep if you want it. A transcript of the conversation is saved only when you turn that on. On a personal account it waits under Recordings in the extension and is deleted from the server 24 hours later; a company keeps it for as long as it decided, up to 30 days. A saved conversation can also be summarised by AI and emailed to you after the call. Both are off until you switch them on.
Live translation without a bot in the call
SubLive takes the sound your Chrome tab is already playing and shows the translation in a window above the call. Nobody joins the participant list, so there's no one for the host to admit.
- Install the extension from the install page and sign in. The first 30 minutes are free after you confirm your email.
- Open the call in Chrome. Google Meet works as it is; Zoom and Teams need to run in the browser, not their desktop apps.
- Choose the language you read and press start, or use Alt+Shift+S.
With several people on the call, dialog mode labels each voice, and on Meet, Zoom and Teams in the browser it also picks up names from the participant tiles. Those names stay on your screen.
Where it stops
It hears Chrome tabs only, so phone calls and desktop apps are out. Subtitles from speech run about a sentence behind the speaker. Your microphone is off unless you turn it on, which means your own words aren't translated for the others. The translation is machine-made, so check figures and commitments before acting on them.
Fireflies or SubLive, side by side
| Fireflies | SubLive | |
|---|---|---|
| Main job | Notes, transcript and summary of the meeting | Translated subtitles during the meeting |
| How it gets the audio | A bot in the call; or the Chrome extension (Meet only) or desktop app without one | Your Chrome tab, no bot |
| Translation | Not described in its help pages; re-transcribe afterwards in another language | Live, into the language you read |
| Recording | Audio and video with the bot | None; optional text transcript |
| Works outside the browser | Desktop app captures system audio | No, Chrome tabs only |
They don't compete for the same job, and plenty of teams could use both: Fireflies for the record, SubLive for the person who needs to understand the call while it's happening. If you're weighing other note-takers too, the Otter.ai comparison covers the same question for Otter.
Frequently asked questions
Can I get a Fireflies transcript in another language?
Yes, after the meeting. Fireflies lets the host or owner re-transcribe a meeting in a different language, up to 3 times, and any manual edits to the previous transcript are lost.
Does SubLive work for in-person meetings?
No. It translates what a Chrome tab plays, so a conversation in a room isn't something it can hear. Fireflies' desktop app, by its own description, can capture system audio for that kind of meeting.
Will the host have to let SubLive in?
No. There's nothing to admit, because SubLive doesn't join the meeting. It runs in your browser, on your side of the call.
Does SubLive write meeting notes like a note-taker?
Not as a separate feature. If you save the transcript and turn on the AI summary, you get a summary of the conversation by email after the call. That's as close as it gets.
SubLive is not affiliated with Fireflies, Google, Microsoft or Zoom.