--- title: "Caven vs Granola: AI Notes for Confidential Work" description: "Caven vs Granola: both take AI notes without a bot. Compare EU processing, own-cloud and on-premise hosting, AI training and legal DMS filing." url: https://caven.io/compare/granola language: en publisher: "Caven BV" --- # Caven vs Granola: The Granola alternative built for confidential work Some tools optimise for fast notes or broad cloud convenience. Caven is built for a harder problem: confidential meeting intelligence for regulated professional teams. ## TL;DR for Busy Teams Granola and Caven both take AI meeting notes without a bot, so the difference is where your data goes and where your notes end up. Granola is a general AI notepad for people in back-to-back meetings: notes are stored in the United States, there is no EU data residency, no private cloud and no on-premise version, and on the Free and Business plans Granola may use anonymised data to improve its own models unless each user opts out. Caven is built for legal and finance: it processes in the EU, runs in your own cloud or fully on-premise, pseudonymizes names before AI processing, never trains on your data and files every meeting into iManage or NetDocuments. For non-sensitive internal notes Granola works well; for confidential client and deal meetings in Europe, Caven is the safer fit. ## Comparing Granola against Caven’s feature list | Requirement | Caven | Granola | | --- | --- | --- | | Recording: No bot in the call | Yes | Yes | | Recording: Any meeting platform | Yes | Yes | | Recording: In-person meetings | Yes | Yes | | Recording: Phone calls, own number | Beta | iPhone only, outgoing | | Data & hosting: Processed in the EU | Yes | No (United States) | | Data & hosting: Runs in your own cloud | Yes | No | | Data & hosting: On-premise | Yes | Not publicly offered | | Data & hosting: No AI training on your data | Yes | Enterprise only (others opt out) | | Data & hosting: Pseudonymization before AI | Yes | Not publicly offered | | Fit for regulated work: NetDocuments | Yes | Not publicly offered | | Fit for regulated work: Custom contract terms & DPA | Yes | No custom terms offered | | Fit for regulated work: Advance notice with opt-out | Yes | Partial (Enterprise pilot, no opt-out) | | Fit for regulated work: Certifications | ISO 27001 | SOC 2 Type II | | Fit for regulated work: Built for legal & finance | Yes | No | Granola column based on Granola’s public documentation as of October 2026. “Partial” means the capability exists in some form or only in some setups; “Not publicly offered” means the vendor’s public pages do not mention it. Plans and features change, so check the vendor’s site for current details. ## What Caven is built for - **Bot-free by design:** A core requirement for sensitive client and deal conversations. Nobody joins the call but the people you invited. - **Controlled custody:** Keep recordings and AI processing in Caven’s EU cloud, in your own cloud, or fully on-premise. - **Filed where your work lives:** Summaries and transcripts go straight into iManage, NetDocuments or SharePoint, next to the matter or deal, instead of staying trapped in a note app. Pseudonymization and encrypted recordings keep exposure low along the way. ## Which platform is right for you? Many teams compare AI meeting tools on summary quality alone. For legal, finance, M&A, private banking and compliance workflows, the better questions are: can the tool work without a meeting bot, can you control where recordings and transcripts live, and can outputs flow into your professional systems? If your priority is lightweight personal note-taking for non-sensitive internal meetings, a general tool may be enough. If you handle regulated client work, deal work, committee work or confidential advisory, the bar is much higher. Caven’s advantage is not one isolated feature: it is the combination of bot-free capture, controlled custody, pseudonymization-aware design, encrypted recordings and embedded workflows for regulated teams. ## Frequently asked questions ### Is Caven a Granola alternative? Yes. Like Granola, Caven takes AI meeting notes without a bot in the call. Caven adds what legal and finance teams need: processing in the EU, hosting in your own cloud or on-premise, pseudonymization before AI processing, filing into iManage and NetDocuments, and ISO 27001 certification. ### Does Granola use a meeting bot? No. Granola records audio from your computer or phone, as Caven does. The difference is where the data goes and how much control you have over it. ### Where does Granola store data? In a US-hosted AWS environment. Granola says it does not offer EU, UK or other regional data residency at this time, and it does not offer a private-cloud or on-premise version. ### Does Granola train AI on my notes? On the Free and Business plans, Granola may use anonymised data to improve its own models unless each user turns this off; on Enterprise it is off by default. Granola does not let third-party AI providers train on your data. Caven never uses your recordings to train AI models, on any plan. ### Where does Caven process recordings? In the EU. Caven can also run in your own AWS, Azure or Google Cloud account, or fully on-premise on your own servers (Enterprise). Recordings are encrypted and never used to train AI models. ### Can Caven file meeting notes into our document management system? Yes. Caven sends summaries and transcripts to iManage and NetDocuments, as well as SharePoint, OneDrive and Google Drive, so every meeting ends up next to the matter or deal it belongs to. ### Does Caven join meetings as a bot? No. Caven records from your desktop for Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, Webex and any other platform, and from your phone for in-person meetings. With your calendar connected, it can notify attendees in advance with an option to object. ## Further reading - [Caven vs Granola, Fireflies, Jamie and Leexi for Regulated Teams](https://caven.io/blog/caven-vs-granola-fireflies-jamie-leexi.md) - [How to Record and Transcribe Any Meeting Without a Bot](https://caven.io/blog/how-to-record-meetings-without-bot.md) ## Next steps - [Book a demo](https://caven.io/book-a-demo) - [Start a 14-day free trial or the free plan](https://caven.io/pricing) - [Download the desktop app](https://caven.io/download)