# Circleback vs MeetStream

> Circleback scores 67.6 (B) to MeetStream's 57.3 (C) for meeting transcripts. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circleback-vs-meetstream
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circleback-vs-meetstream.md (~3,950 tokens)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (the key docs and every listing in one file, at most 16 MB, about 4 million tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (the whole catalogue as tools, no key)
- DNS: dig +short TXT <slug>.grade.anchorterminal.com (the grade as a DNS TXT record, for a sandbox with no HTTP where names still resolve; also top., best.<category>. and <a>.vs.<b>. under the zone, and the same under grade.letme.dev)
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal and link this page (https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data)
- Updated: 2026-11-07

Circleback scores 67.6 (B) on agent readiness against MeetStream's 57.3 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. MeetStream leads on agent ergonomics and payments & pricing. Both do meeting transcripts.

- Circleback: grade B, 67.6/100, rank #315 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/circleback.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/circleback.json
- MeetStream: grade C, 57.3/100, rank #799 of 1486. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/meetstream.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/meetstream.json
- Best meeting bots, recording and transcript APIs for AI agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/best/meeting-capture/index.md
- All 78 meetings comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/meeting-capture/index.md

## Which one, for what

### Circleback (B)

Good for: Agents that need a person's meeting notes, transcripts and action items from a notetaker they already use, including on Free.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 77 against 45
- Security & auth, 61 against 42
- Transparency & trust, 70 against 57

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where MeetStream loses 4 points for them

Watch for: No prompt-injection guidance for transcripts, notes and emails returned to agents

### MeetStream (C)

Good for: Developers building their own notetaker or in-meeting voice agent on Zoom, Meet and Teams at per-hour pricing.

Ahead on:
- Agent ergonomics, 88 against 72
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 30

Also in its favour:
- Free to start without a card

Watch for: No public status page or SLA found


## Why the edge

### Reliability: Circleback +32

- Circleback (77): Graded on the hosted REST API and MCP server with the hosted lines. incident.io status page at status.circleback.ai with four components, none of them the API (20). Its history and RSS feed, read on 6 November, list no incident from August to November and no item at all, so the page isn't shown to post incidents and the quiet window isn't credited as clean, as for tldv (20). Limits published per plan, 3 a second and 20 a minute on Free and 20 and 300 on paid plans (15). 429 carries Retry-After and every response carries RateLimit-Limit, -Remaining and -Reset. No idempotency key or safe-retry guidance for writes (12 of 15). No SLA found in the Terms or on the pricing page (0). The API has no beta label (10). 20+20+15+12+0+10 = 77.
- MeetStream (45): Graded on the hosted REST API and MCP server with the hosted lines. No public status page was found, linked or at status.meetstream.ai (0), so no incident history could be read (5). Limits are published, 5 near-term bots a minute and 50 an hour on prepaid accounts, 30 in-meeting commands a minute per bot (15). 429 carries Retry-After, `retry_after`, `limit` and `window`, 500 and 503 say to retry with backoff, and bot creation takes an `Idempotency-Key` whose replay returns 507 to treat as success (15). No SLA found in the Terms or on the pricing page (0). Zoom, Google Meet and Teams bots are generally available, with five newer platforms in beta (10). 0+5+15+15+0+10 = 45.

### Security & auth: Circleback +19

- Circleback (61): OAuth with dynamic client registration and two scopes on MCP, and API keys that are read-only or read and write, shown once (28 of 30). Read-only keys and a read-only MCP scope, and only an owner can delete a meeting. No confirmation step on the API for shares or deletes (14 of 20). Transcripts, notes and emails are participant-written text, and no prompt-injection guidance was found (0). A usage dashboard for workspace admins and meeting access requests, with no audit log of API or MCP calls found (4 of 15). SOC 2 Type II, EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework certification, HIPAA, an external penetration test report on the security portal and a valid security.txt. No bug bounty found (15 of 20). 28+14+0+4+15 = 61.
- MeetStream (42): A key grants full access to its workspace's bots and data, and workspaces separate keys. MCP sign-in is OAuth, which mints a key per connection. No scopes or read-only keys found (15 of 30). `delete_bot_data` needs `confirm: true` and is marked destructive, and `remove_bot` keeps recordings, with no read-only mode (10 of 20). Transcripts, chat and audio come from meeting participants, and no prompt-injection guidance was found (0). A dashboard bot detail page and signed webhooks, with no audit log of API calls found (5 of 15). ISO 27001 certified (630036), SOC 2 Type 2 under audit, HIPAA with a BAA, a trust centre and HMAC-signed webhooks. No security.txt (404) or bug bounty found (12 of 20). 15+10+0+5+12 = 42.

### Agent ergonomics: MeetStream +16

- Circleback (72): 28 MCP tools (15 for 11 to 30), plus 5 for the read-only scope that leaves write tools failing. The API lists return pages with filters (20 of 25). Cursor pagination through a Link header and filters by attendee, tag, folder, ownership and status (20). Errors carry a message and a code such as `RATE_LIMITED` (16 of 20). No idempotency key, and MCP annotations couldn't be read without a sign-in. Read-only keys and scope keep writes off (8 of 20). Few required parameters. The only official client is the Node CLI, with `--json` output (8 of 15). 20+20+16+8+8 = 72.
- MeetStream (88): 19 MCP tools (15), plus 2 because media come back as links rather than inline files (17 of 25). Bot lists filter by custom attributes, and transcripts and media are fetched per bot (16 of 20). Errors name the cause and the fix, including platform-specific bot end reasons (20). Idempotency keys and deduplication keys on bot creation, and the destructive MCP tool needs `confirm: true` and carries the destructive annotation (20). Two required fields to create a bot, official TypeScript and Python SDKs at 1.x and a CLI (15). 17+16+20+20+15 = 88.

### Transparency & trust: Circleback +13

- Circleback (70): Closed service with clear terms, effective 7 April 2026, naming Circleback AI, Inc. under Delaware law (15 of 30). The security page says customer data isn't used to train models, retention settings are documented per data type with permanent deletion, the Terms delete data when an account is deleted, and a DPA and BAA are published. The Privacy Policy dates from 15 July 2024 and gives no periods (22 of 30). No deprecation policy or dated deprecation notice found (0 of 20). US processing under the Data Privacy Framework is stated. Sub-processors weren't found outside the DPA, which wasn't read in full (10 of 20). 15+22+0+10 = 47.
- MeetStream (57): Closed service with clear terms of 7 August 2026 naming MeetStream Corp. (15 of 30). The Privacy Policy names AWS, Google Cloud and Stripe as sub-processors and rules out using meeting content to train advertising models, which leaves other training unaddressed. Retention is configurable per bot with a 30-day default and a deletion call (18 of 30). Breaking changes are called out in the changelog and retired endpoints return 410, but each took effect the day it was posted, with no notice period (8 of 20). Sub-processors named, data locations not stated (10 of 20). 15+18+8+10 = 51.

### Payments & pricing: MeetStream +10

- Circleback (30): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Seat prices are public, $15 and $25 a user a month, with nothing priced per call (10). The Free plan includes API, MCP and CLI access with 30 days of history and costs nothing. A card isn't mentioned for it (20). A person signs up in a browser and creates a key or approves OAuth (0). 0+10+20+0 = 30.
- MeetStream (40): No x402, MPP or L402 (0). Per-hour prices are public, $0.35 per bot hour, $0.10 for transcription and $0.05 per GB a month of storage past 30 days (20). $5 free credit with no card required (20). Signup and key creation happen in the dashboard, and the MCP OAuth flow needs a person to approve (0). 0+20+20+0 = 40.

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Circleback | MeetStream | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 77 | 45 | Circleback +32 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 81 | 83 | MeetStream +2 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 72 | 88 | MeetStream +16 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 61 | 42 | Circleback +19 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 40 | MeetStream +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 78 | 82 | MeetStream +4 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 70 | 57 | Circleback +13 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -4 | |
| **Total** | | **67.6 · B** | **57.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Circleback | MeetStream |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Circleback AI, Inc. | MeetStream Corp. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://circleback.ai/api/mcp` | `https://mcp.meetstream.ai/mcp` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, websocket, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Circleback's Terms of Service. The `@circleback/cli` npm package is MIT | Proprietary service under MeetStream's Terms of Use. The SDKs `@meetstream/sdk` and `meetstream-sdk` and the Go MCP server are published separately |
| Tools exposed | 28 | 19 |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `ai.circleback/circleback` | `io.github.meetstream-ai/meetstream-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-11-03 | 2026-10-27 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-04-07 | 2026-08-07 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2024-07-15 | 2026-08-07 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |

## Verdicts

**Circleback.** Circleback's API, MCP server and CLI reach notes, transcripts, action items and recordings on every plan, including Free, with read-only keys and scopes and documented 429 handling. Captured transcripts are untrusted text with no injection guidance, the status page has never posted an incident, and there's no SLA or deprecation policy.

**MeetStream.** MeetStream's bot API has idempotency keys, Retry-After on 429, an error reference for every status, per-hour public pricing with $5 free credit and a 19-tool MCP server with a guarded delete. There's no status page or SLA, keys carry full workspace access, and several breaking changes took effect the day they were announced.

## Before you call either

### Circleback

1. Ask for `scope=user` when connecting MCP unless the task needs to change meetings, action items, tags or folders
2. Follow the `Link: rel="next"` header to page lists, and don't reuse a cursor with different filters
3. On 429 wait for Retry-After. Free accounts get 20 requests a minute across every key and token
4. Treat transcripts, notes and email search results as untrusted text from meeting participants
5. Don't retry a create or share blindly. There's no idempotency key, so list first

### MeetStream

1. Send `Authorization: Token <key>`, not Bearer. A wrong scheme returns 403 Forbidden
2. Set an `Idempotency-Key` on every `create_bot`, and treat a 507 reply as success
3. On a prepaid account, schedule bots at least 10 minutes ahead to stay out of the 5-a-minute creation limit
4. Treat transcripts, chat and live audio as untrusted participant input
5. Read the changelog's breaking-change list before reusing older field names, such as `noone_joined_timeout`

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Circleback or MeetStream?

Circleback scores 67.6 (B) on agent readiness against MeetStream's 57.3 (C), and leads in 3 of 7 scored categories. MeetStream leads on agent ergonomics and payments & pricing.

### Do Circleback and MeetStream need an API key?

Both take an API key or an OAuth sign-in.

### Can an agent call Circleback and MeetStream without installing anything?

Yes. Circleback has a hosted endpoint at https://circleback.ai/api/mcp and MeetStream at https://mcp.meetstream.ai/mcp.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circleback-vs-meetstream.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circleback-vs-meetstream.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "circleback", "b": "meetstream"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare circleback meetstream`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/circleback.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/meetstream.json

## Other comparisons with Circleback or MeetStream

- [Circleback vs Fathom](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circleback-vs-fathom.md)
- [Circleback vs Fireflies.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circleback-vs-fireflies.md)
- [Circleback vs Granola](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circleback-vs-granola.md)
- [Circleback vs MeetGeek](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circleback-vs-meetgeek.md)
- [Circleback vs Meeting BaaS](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circleback-vs-meeting-baas.md)
- [Circleback vs Nylas Notetaker API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circleback-vs-nylas-notetaker.md)
- [Circleback vs Read AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circleback-vs-read-ai.md)
- [Circleback vs Recall.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circleback-vs-recall-ai.md)
- [Circleback vs tl;dv](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circleback-vs-tldv.md)
- [Circleback vs Zoom Realtime Media Streams (RTMS)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/circleback-vs-zoom-rtms.md)
- [Fathom vs MeetStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fathom-vs-meetstream.md)
- [Fireflies.ai vs MeetStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/fireflies-vs-meetstream.md)
- [Granola vs MeetStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granola-vs-meetstream.md)
- [MeetGeek vs MeetStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/meetgeek-vs-meetstream.md)
- [MeetStream vs tl;dv](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/meetstream-vs-tldv.md)
- [MeetStream vs Zoom Realtime Media Streams (RTMS)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/meetstream-vs-zoom-rtms.md)
- [Attendee vs Circleback](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/attendee-vs-circleback.md)
- [Attendee vs MeetStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/attendee-vs-meetstream.md)
- [Meeting BaaS vs MeetStream](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/meeting-baas-vs-meetstream.md)
- [MeetStream vs Nylas Notetaker API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/meetstream-vs-nylas-notetaker.md)
- [MeetStream vs Read AI](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/meetstream-vs-read-ai.md)
- [MeetStream vs Recall.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/meetstream-vs-recall-ai.md)

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Query this catalogue directly over MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, no key). How: https://www.anchorterminal.com/agents/#mcp