tl;dv alternative

For meeting notes, not meeting clips for the marketing team.

tl;dv is built around video — clips, highlights, sharable timestamps for the team. The bot joins, the recording lives in their cloud, and the AI features are tiered behind Pro and Business. If you want plain meeting notes that live in your Obsidian vault and connect to Cursor and Claude — bot-free, in .md, $49 once — Quietly is the simpler shape.

macOS 13+ No bot Markdown export MCP-native
What you get
A folder of meetings.

Plain .md. Front-matter has attendees, calendar, duration. Body is Whisper output.

14:32
2026-05-04-q3-launch-review.md 42 min · 5 attendees
2026-05-05-1on1-jane.md 28 min
2026-05-06-customer-acme.md Recording
Why notes-first users move

Bot in the call. Video in their cloud. AI gated by tier.

tl;dv's bot joins. Customer calls, candidate interviews, internal 1:1s — every meeting gets a third participant.

Full video recording in tl;dv's cloud. Great for highlight reels; less great when an exec's 1:1 ends up in a vendor breach.

Pro $29/seat, Business $98/seat. AI summaries, custom reports, multi-meeting analysis are all behind paid tiers.

Closed UI. Notes and clips live in tl;dv's web app; Cursor and Claude can't reach them natively.

Side-by-side

Quietly vs tl;dv.

Quietly tl;dv
No bot joins the call Bot in every call
Output Markdown notes Video clips + transcript
Where it lives Your Mac tl;dv's cloud
MCP for Claude / Cursor Native
Open in Obsidian / VS Code
Works fully offline
Sharable video timestamps Not the goal Yes
Pricing $49 once Free / $29 / $98 seat
Honest take

Where tl;dv is better.

tl;dv has real strengths. If you need them, stay there.

Video

Sharable video clips.

tl;dv's killer feature: trim a 30-second clip from a customer call, drop the link in Slack. Quietly does notes only — no video clipping.

Cross-platform

Mac, Windows, web.

tl;dv runs anywhere. Quietly is macOS-only today.

Free tier

Generous free tier.

tl;dv's free tier covers a lot if you can live with the bot, the cloud, and the upsell.

Why people switch

Where Quietly wins.

No bot

No bot, no clip request.

tl;dv was great when “share a clip with the team” was a value prop. For people who just want their own notes searchable in their own tools, the bot is just a price they pay.

Local

No video uploaded anywhere.

Quietly captures audio locally and writes Markdown. tl;dv records full video and uploads it to their cloud — surface area you may not need or want.

$49 once

One seat pays for itself.

tl;dv Pro = $348/seat/year. Quietly = $49 once. After two months, even on a single seat, you're ahead — forever.

MCP-native

AI editors, natively.

Quietly's MCP server makes Claude Desktop and Cursor read your meeting notes directly. tl;dv's AI features are inside their app — they don't flow into your editor.

In-person

No meeting URL needed.

Hallway chats, in-person customer meetings, voice memos — ⌘R captures the mic. Drop any audio file in. tl;dv assumes a Zoom / Meet / Teams link.

Plain Markdown

Open in anything that reads files.

Plain .md in your Obsidian vault, your repo, your iCloud folder. tl;dv's notes are inside their UI; Quietly's never were.

Migration

Switching from tl;dv in 10 minutes.

01

Export your tl;dv data. Settings → Export. You'll get transcripts and metadata. Video clips can stay on tl;dv if you still want them.

02

Disable the auto-joining notetaker. tl;dv → Settings → Calendar → toggle off. Remove pending bot invites if needed.

03

Drop the export into your Quietly folder. Cursor, Claude Desktop, and Obsidian see your back catalogue right away.

If you need clip-sharing, run tl;dv free alongside for that one workflow — they're not strictly the same product. Questions: support@meetquietly.com.

FAQ

Things people ask before switching.

Does Quietly do video clip sharing like tl;dv?
No — that's tl;dv's strongest feature and we won't try to match it. If your team's workflow is “share a 30-second clip in Slack,” stay on tl;dv or run it free alongside Quietly. Quietly is for the notes-and-search-and-AI side of the same problem.
Why is Quietly better for AI-assisted recall?
Quietly ships a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, so Claude Desktop and Cursor read your meeting notes natively. You can ask “what did we decide about pricing in last week's standup?” inside the AI tool you already use. tl;dv's AI features run inside tl;dv's app and don't flow into your editor.
Pricing math vs tl;dv?
tl;dv Pro is $29/seat/mo = $348/seat/year; Business is $98/seat. Quietly is $49 once for an individual, $199 once for 5 seats. You break even on a single seat in roughly two months.
Will I lose my call recordings?
No. tl;dv's account export gives you transcripts and metadata. Video clips can stay on tl;dv (free tier) if you still want them. Quietly captures audio + writes Markdown going forward.
Does Quietly send a bot to my Zoom calls?
Never. Capture happens entirely on your Mac via system audio routing (BlackHole) — no third-party participant in the call.

Notes, not video clips.

7-day trial, no card. 30-day refund. Lemon Squeezy checkout.

$ 49 once · 2 Macs
Download free trial

Or $199 once · 5 team seats