Granola is the better app overall, scoring 8.5 to 7.5. Granola wins on 4 of the 5 scores, DeepSeek on 1.
Busy professionals who sit in back-to-back video meetings
Students and developers who want strong reasoning help without paying
Score by score
The details
| Feature | Granola | DeepSeek |
|---|---|---|
| Category | AI Assistants | AI Assistants |
| Category rank | #6 of 10 | #10 of 10 |
| Developer | Granola | DeepSeek |
| Pricing | Free + paid plans | Free |
| Usable for free | Yes | Yes |
| iPhone & iPad | ✓ | ✓ |
| Android | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mac | ✓ | — |
| Windows | ✓ | — |
| Web | — | ✓ |
Common questions
Is Granola better than DeepSeek?
Granola is the better app overall, scoring 8.5 to 7.5. Granola wins on 4 of the 5 scores, DeepSeek on 1.
Which is cheaper, Granola or DeepSeek?
Granola: Free plan keeps 30 days of notes; Business is $14 per user a month. DeepSeek: Free app and website; developers pay separately for the API. On value for money, DeepSeek scores higher.
Do Granola and DeepSeek work on the same devices?
Only Granola runs on Mac, Windows. Only DeepSeek runs on Web.
Which is more private, Granola or DeepSeek?
Granola scores higher on privacy (7.2/10). Granola doesn't store meeting audio, and notes are encrypted at rest. It trains on anonymized data by default, with an opt-out in Settings. The App Store label links audio, contacts and usage to you.
Strengths and weaknesses
Granola
- No bot joins your calls
- Turns your rough notes into clean summaries
- Works with Zoom, Meet, Teams and in person
- Free plan keeps only 30 days of notes
- No audio recording to replay later
- Trains on anonymized data unless you opt out
Granola listens to your meetings through your computer or phone's audio, so no bot joins the call. You jot rough notes as usual, and afterwards it merges them with the transcript into clean, structured notes using templates you choose. Chat across past meetings, share them in team Spaces, or send them to Slack, Notion or HubSpot. The free plan keeps only 30 days of history, and training on anonymized data is on unless you opt out.
Full Granola review
DeepSeek
- Strong reasoning and coding help at no cost
- Reads images and very long documents
- Open-weight models you can run yourself
- Data is stored on servers in China
- No image generation and few extras beyond chat
DeepSeek offers capable reasoning and coding help completely free, and its models are released as open weights under the MIT license. Expert mode handles harder problems, web search is built in, and the app can now read photos and very long documents. It is still basic next to paid rivals, with no image generation. Its privacy policy says data is stored in China, and several governments restrict it on official devices.
Full DeepSeek review
