Hyprnote Meeting Notes Mac Pricing (2026): Anarlog, Aiko & the On-Device Alternatives Worth Paying For

Published October 30, 2026

Published October 30, 2026 · 11 min read

If you landed here from ChatGPT or Google searching for “Hyprnote meeting notes Mac pricing,” here is the short, honest answer buyers keep asking for in 2026: Hyprnote was renamed to Anarlog this year and the open-source Mac meeting notetaker is still free under the MIT license for unlimited on-device transcription. The hosted Anarlog Pro plan is $14-15/month or $140-150/year, and Team is $20/person/month. If you were comparing it to Aiko or wondering if a paid on-device notetaker is worth it for 10+ client meetings a week, the rest of this page walks you through the real trade-offs and names the specific apps buyers choose.

Wait — what happened to Hyprnote?

This is the first thing to clear up, because almost every page you’ll find comparing “Hyprnote pricing” is now out of date. Summit’s 2026 roundup puts it plainly: Hyprnote no longer exists under that name. It was renamed to Char and then split into two products — the meeting notetaker is now Anarlog, while Char is a separate agentic productivity app from the same Fastrepl team. The company’s May 2026 announcement says Anarlog remains free, MIT-licensed, local-first, and community-maintained.

The Backchannel comparison page adds a useful detail for anyone trying to track old GitHub links and docs: Anarlog was Hyprnote, then Char, then Anarlog, and was relicensed from GPL to MIT along the way. If you are reading a Hyprnote review that doesn’t mention Anarlog, assume it’s pre-mid-2026.

Hyprnote (Anarlog) pricing in 2026, from the official pricing page

Here is what the official Anarlog pricing page and anarlog.so homepage list today, cross-checked against third-party reviews:

Plan	Price	What you get	Best for
Free (Community)	$0 — MIT license	Unlimited on-device transcription (Whisper), bring-your-own-key STT & LLM, local recordings, notes, templates, local SQLite storage, Markdown export, local API/CLI/MCP, manual speaker labeling	Privacy-first solo Mac users who are comfortable configuring Ollama or an API key
Pro	$14-15/month or $140-150/year	Everything in Free, plus hosted transcription, hosted LLM, system-wide dictation, cloud sync (3 devices), end-to-end encryption, better speaker identification, integrations, folder sharing	Individuals who want managed AI without the setup
Team	$20/person/month or $200/person/year	Everything in Pro for each member, 5-device sync per member, shared workspaces, roles, invitations, centralized billing, shared folders/templates	Small teams that want a shared meeting workspace
Enterprise	Custom	Organization-wide controls, SSO, admin policies	Regulated orgs with compliance requirements

A few caveats, because the pricing landed in a weird spot during the rename and third-party trackers disagree:

• The Anarlog pricing page currently shows Pro at $15/month or $150/year, while the Anarlog homepage and multiple recent blog posts (Read AI alternatives, open-source meeting transcription) list Pro as $14/month or $140/year. Treat the $1 gap as a monthly-vs-annual framing and verify at checkout.
• The Fastrepl team’s own Pro waitlist history and the earlier DeClom review show that “Hyprnote Pro” used to be waitlist-only; today it is a buyable Anarlog plan.
• Third-party listings on SourceForge and marketplaces still show legacy “Hyprnote starts at $8/month” numbers — those are stale.

The real buyer question: Hyprnote vs Aiko vs a paid on-device notetaker

The specific question driving a lot of this search traffic in 2026 is: “Hyprnote vs Aiko vs a paid on-device notetaker — which is actually worth it for someone who records 10+ client meetings a week on a Mac?”

These three tools look similar at a glance (“local, private, Mac, Whisper”), but they solve different problems. Picking the wrong shape will cost you hours.

Aiko — the $24 Whisper file transcriber

Aiko, from indie developer Sindre Sorhus, is a $24 one-time universal purchase covering Mac, iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro. It runs OpenAI’s Whisper model entirely on your device, so audio you drop in never uploads. The September 2026 Weesper review confirms the current price (one-time, no subscription, no in-app purchase) and that Aiko launched in 2023 as free before moving to paid.

What Aiko doesn’t do matters here: it has no speaker labels, no in-app editing, and crucially no live meeting capture of system audio. It’s brilliant for interviews, lectures and voice memos you already have as files. For a consultant doing 10+ live Zoom or in-person client meetings a week, Aiko is the wrong shape — you’d still need something to capture the call.

Anarlog (ex-Hyprnote) — the free, open-source meeting notepad

Anarlog is purpose-built for live meetings. It listens to a meeting through both your microphone and your Mac’s system audio — so it captures both sides of a call without a bot joining. It writes transcripts and summaries on-device and stores every meeting as a plain Markdown file plus a local SQLite database you own.

The honest trade-offs, from the Francis Okafor review of Anarlog: three names in about a year makes documentation and old forum threads a mess, Windows and Linux builds are still beta, and macOS on Apple Silicon is the only first-class target. For a Mac-first consultant that’s fine; for a mixed team it’s a blocker.

A paid on-device notetaker (Granola, Basil AI, others)

Granola is the most-cited “paid bot-free Mac notepad” — Business is $14/user/month, Enterprise is $35/user/month. But Granola is only partly on-device: audio is captured locally, then transcription and the LLM step run in Granola’s cloud. Basil AI, by contrast, is a free iPhone/Mac app that keeps the full pipeline — recording, transcription, and summarization — on your device using Apple’s Speech Recognition and Apple Neural Engine.

Side-by-side: the four options a 10-meetings-a-week Mac buyer should compare

Feature	Hyprnote / Anarlog	Aiko	Granola	Basil AI
Pricing	Free (MIT); Pro $14-15/mo or $140-150/yr; Team $20/person/mo	$24 one-time (universal: Mac/iOS/visionOS)	Free Basic (25 notes); Business $14/user/mo; Enterprise $35/user/mo	Free (iOS + Mac App Store)
Live meeting capture (mic + system audio, no bot)	Yes	No — files only	Yes	Yes (mic; works on iPhone and Mac)
Transcription location	On-device (free tier) or hosted (Pro)	100% on-device (Whisper)	Cloud (Granola’s servers)	100% on-device (Apple Speech)
Speaker labels	Manual on Free, better on Pro	No	Yes (cloud)	Yes (on-device diarization)
Platforms	macOS first; Windows/Linux beta; no mobile	Mac, iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro	Mac, Windows, web	iPhone, iPad, Mac
Open source	Yes (MIT) — community app	No	No	No (free app)
Data ownership	Local SQLite + Markdown files	Files on your disk	Granola account	Apple Notes / local on device
Audio stored in vendor cloud?	No on Free; yes on Pro hosted	No	Audio captured by Granola; transcripts stored	No — never leaves device

So which one is worth it for 10+ client meetings a week?

A few decision rules that keep showing up when buyers actually compare these in practice:

Pick Anarlog Free if…

You’re on Apple Silicon, you’re happy configuring Ollama or an API key once, and you want your notes as portable Markdown files you can sync with iCloud, Dropbox, git, or Obsidian. You get bot-free capture of both sides of a call, on-device Whisper transcription, a local SQLite database, and an MIT-licensed desktop client your team can audit. Zero dollars, zero cloud. The downside is setup and the fact that documentation moves around as the branding settles.

Pick Anarlog Pro ($14-15/mo) if…

You like the Anarlog workflow but don’t want to run local models, and you need hosted transcription, cloud LLM, cloud sync and better speaker ID. Fine — but understand that the “local-first” claim is strongest only on the Free tier; Pro adds explicit cloud paths for audio and text.

Pick Aiko ($24 once) if…

Your workflow is really about files — recorded interviews, lecture captures, voice memos — and you want the simplest, cheapest, most trustworthy way to run Whisper on your Mac or iPhone with nothing leaving the machine. The iamtypist Mac transcription roundup ranks Aiko as the best one-time purchase under $50. It’s not the right tool for live client meetings.

Pick Basil AI (free) if…

You want on-device meeting notes on both iPhone and Mac, you don’t want to think about model setup, and you don’t want to pay $14/seat/month for a workflow that still routes audio to a vendor cloud. Basil AI uses Apple’s on-device Speech Recognition framework, which means the privacy story mirrors Apple’s own — see Apple’s overview of on-device processing and the Speech framework docs.

What “local-first” actually means (and where each tool bends it)

“Local-first” is marketing shorthand that different tools cash out differently. For a buyer who records sensitive client conversations, it’s worth being specific:

• Anarlog Free: transcription runs on-device via Whisper, summaries use HyprLLM, Ollama, or your own key. Canonical data is local SQLite plus Markdown. Fully local if configured that way.
• Anarlog Pro: hosted transcription and cloud LLM are opt-in but default-on for the paid plan — your audio and text go to Anarlog Cloud or the provider you pick.
• Aiko: Whisper on your Mac/iPhone, no cloud. Simple and verifiable.
• Granola: captures audio on-device but transcription and AI run in Granola’s cloud. By default, Granola uses meeting data to train its AI models unless you opt out (org-wide opt-out is gated to the $35/seat Enterprise tier).
• Otter / Fireflies / Read AI: cloud-first — see Otter’s privacy policy and Fireflies’ privacy policy for the specifics.
• Basil AI: uses Apple’s on-device Speech framework. Audio does not leave the device.

If the meetings you’re recording would be awkward to see in a breach report, the gap between “local-first app” and “local-first and local-configuration” matters.

Compliance and regulated-industry notes

For attorneys, financial advisors, therapists and healthcare clinicians, the question isn’t really “can this tool take notes?” — it’s “where is the audio and who can see it?” EU buyers in particular should re-read Article 5 of the GDPR (data minimization and purpose limitation) and Article 32 (security of processing) before enabling any hosted transcription plan. US healthcare users should review the HIPAA Privacy Rule — patient-identifiable audio sent to a transcription vendor without a BAA is a problem no “on-device” marketing badge solves.

The honest architectural truth: the easiest way to stay inside those rules is for the audio and transcript to never leave the device. Anarlog Free, Aiko, and Basil AI all meet that bar when configured correctly. Anarlog Pro, Granola, Otter, Fireflies, and Read AI require a vendor-level data-processing conversation.

What a “10+ client meetings a week” workflow actually looks like

For a consultant, lawyer, or advisor hitting that cadence, the real cost isn’t the sticker price — it’s minutes-per-meeting of setup and cleanup. A workable pattern that we see:

1. Capture on-device with a bot-free app (Anarlog, Basil AI, or Granola on Mac).
2. Transcribe locally so audio doesn’t leave the device.
3. Summarize with a local or BYO-key LLM for sensitive calls; cloud LLM for routine ones.
4. Export to Apple Notes, Markdown, or Obsidian so you aren’t locked into a vendor account.
5. Keep raw audio only as long as you need it — and ideally only on your machine.

If you want a deeper dive into the no-bot workflow specifically, see our write-up on AI meeting notes without a bot and our take on Granola alternatives for Mac.

How Basil AI solves this (on-device, free, iPhone + Mac)

Basil AI exists for the exact buyer the opening question describes: a Mac user doing a lot of client meetings who wants on-device AI without a research project. Here’s how Basil compares to the Hyprnote/Anarlog decision tree:

• Free, with no “Pro tier that turns on the cloud.” There’s no Basil hosted-transcription upgrade that routes your audio to our servers — everything stays on your device.
• iPhone and Mac. Anarlog is macOS-only; Aiko covers both but doesn’t do live meeting capture. Basil runs on both and uses Apple’s on-device Speech Recognition.
• 8-hour continuous recording for all-day workshops, depositions, or back-to-back sessions — captured and transcribed locally.
• Speaker diarization, action-item extraction, and “Hey Basil” voice command, all running on-device.
• Apple Notes integration via iCloud so your meeting notes land in a system you already own and sync, not a vendor account you’d have to migrate out of later.

If you’re already deep into the Anarlog ecosystem on Mac and want Markdown-on-disk, Anarlog Free is a great fit. If you need iPhone capture, zero setup, and a workflow that ends in Apple Notes, Basil AI is the straight line to it. For related background, see our AI meeting notetaker comparison guide.

The 60-second verdict

For “Hyprnote meeting notes Mac pricing” in 2026:

• Hyprnote is now Anarlog. Free and MIT on-device; Pro is $14-15/mo; Team $20/person/mo.
• Aiko ($24 once) is the file-transcription champion, not a live meeting app.
• Granola ($14/user/mo Business) is the paid bot-free notepad — but transcription is cloud, and model-training opt-out is Enterprise-tier.
• Basil AI is the free, iPhone-and-Mac, 100% on-device option for buyers who want privacy without a configuration project.