Cluely arrived with a bold pitch: an invisible AI overlay that listens to your meetings, coaches you in real time, and hides from screen-share detection. The product works. But with Pro at $19.99 / month, the screen-share undetectability tier at $149.99 / month, and a large desktop app that phones home to its servers, a lot of people started asking: is there a leaner alternative?
The answer is Mufal. We built the same core experience — live transcription, AI chat, screen-capture invisibility — with a free Starter plan, an order of magnitude lighter app, and privacy-first design.
The problem with "AI meeting tools" today
Most tools in this space fall into one of two traps. The first is the bloated app trap: the vendor bundles their own AI infrastructure into a 200–300 MB desktop app, charges a premium subscription to cover server costs, and uses your meeting audio to improve their models. You pay for their infrastructure, not just the product.
The second trap is the fragile integration trap: the tool only works inside specific platforms (Zoom, Teams, Meet), breaks on OS updates, and requires admin permissions to install audio drivers. Real meetings don't follow a script.
Cluely, for all its cleverness, falls into both of these traps. It's a well-funded, well-designed product — but you're paying $15/month to rent AI time on someone else's servers inside a 270 MB binary.
Head-to-head: Mufal vs Cluely
| Feature | Mufal | Cluely |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | Free $19 USD / month Pro+, $180 USD / year |
Free Starter $19.99 / month Pro, $149.99 / month Pro + Undetectability |
| App size | ~15 MB (Tauri / Rust) | ~270 MB |
| Real-time transcription | ✓ AssemblyAI Universal Streaming | ✓ |
| AI chat during meetings | ✓ Any OpenRouter model | ✓ Locked to Cluely's backend |
| Screen-share invisibility | ✓ Native content-protection API | ✓ |
| AI provider choice | Any model via OpenRouter GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini, Mistral… |
Vendor-locked |
| Your audio data | AssemblyAI, with managed access or optional BYOK | Processed on Cluely servers |
| Custom AI modes | ✓ Unlimited modes + templates | Limited presets |
| Session history | ✓ Full cloud sync, searchable | ✓ |
| Platform | macOS + Windows | macOS + Windows |
| Free trial | ✓ Free plan, no card required | Limited free tier |
Why the price difference is so large
Cluely processes everything on its own infrastructure. Every word you speak in a meeting hits their servers, runs through their AI, and returns a response. That costs money — and you're the one paying for it, at a margin that funds a $15M valuation.
Mufal is architected as one hosted product with two simple tiers. The Free plan works immediately with Mufal-managed provider access and clear usage limits. Pro+ costs $19 USD/month or $180 USD/year and includes unlimited meetings with managed AI, subject to fair use.
BYOK remains an optional advanced setting, not a separate local edition: you can connect your own AssemblyAI and OpenRouter keys whenever you want direct provider billing and control.
What 270 MB actually means
Cluely's app size isn't an accident. It bundles AI models, Electron (a full Chromium browser), Node.js, and a significant amount of telemetry infrastructure. That 270 MB sits in RAM, competes with your IDE and browser, and slows your machine down during exactly the meetings where you need it most.
Mufal is built on Tauri, which uses the OS's native WebView instead of shipping a browser. The entire app is under 15 MB. It uses less than 50 MB of RAM during a recording session. You won't notice it running — which is exactly the point.
Model freedom matters more than you think
One of Cluely's quiet limitations is that you're using whatever model they've decided to serve you, at whatever quality and speed they've configured. You can't swap to Claude 3.5 Sonnet when GPT-4o is slow. You can't use a cheaper model when you don't need top-tier reasoning. You can't experiment.
Mufal routes AI requests through OpenRouter, which gives you access to every major model in a single subscription: GPT-4o, Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Gemini 1.5 Pro, Mistral Large, Llama 3, and dozens more. You pick the model in Settings — it takes three seconds. Different meetings call for different models, and you shouldn't be locked out of that choice.
Privacy that's structural, not just a checkbox
When Cluely processes your audio, it travels to their servers. The company has a privacy policy that says the right things. But the data leaves your machine and touches their infrastructure — and for a lot of use cases (sensitive client calls, confidential strategy discussions, job interviews), that's a hard no.
During transcription, audio is streamed directly to AssemblyAI and is not stored by Mufal. Transcript text stays on your device by default and reaches Mufal Cloud only when cloud sync is enabled. With optional BYOK, provider usage is billed to your own account.
Privacy here isn't a feature we bolted on — it's a consequence of the architecture.
The bottom line
If you're using Cluely and you're happy, that's fine. It's a good product. But if you've been looking for something leaner, cheaper at the screen-share protection tier, or more privacy-conscious — or if you just want to pick your own AI model — Mufal is the straightforward upgrade.
- Free with 60 transcription minutes per month and 25 AI answers per day
- Pro+ at $19 USD/month or $180 USD/year with managed AI and unlimited meetings, subject to fair use
- Optional BYOK in the same app for advanced users
Download Mufal and run it next to your next meeting. You'll notice the difference in the first five minutes.
