[00:00]// Alternatives

7 Best Cluely Alternatives in 2026 (Free & Open Source)

Published 2 July 2026 · Updated 2 July 2026

Cluely is the “undetectable” AI overlay that whispers answers during meetings and interviews — free to trial, US$19.99/mo (~A$30) for Pro, and US$149.99/mo (~A$225) if you want the invisibility it’s famous for. If you’re hunting for an alternative, it’s usually one of three reasons: the price, the billing horror stories, or the fact the whole pitch is built on deceiving whoever you’re talking to. This guide covers the seven real alternatives — genuinely free and open-source options included — with pricing checked on 2 July 2026. For the full background on Cluely itself, read our complete Cluely review.

Why people ditch Cluely

Three complaints come up constantly. First, the price structure: undetectability — the feature the brand was built on — costs a US$130/month premium over Pro. Second, the billing record: our review found refunds limited to a 24-hour window requiring video evidence, and mid-2026 reporting put Cluely’s Trustpilot rating near 1.8/5. Third, the obvious one — stealth tools are getting caught, and the consequences land on you, not the vendor.

• Fabric, an AI-cheating detection vendor (so read its numbers with that incentive in mind), reported flagging 38.5% of candidates for AI-assisted behaviour across 19,368 live interviews from mid-2025 to early 2026 — rising to 48% in technical roles.
• Per Gartner figures reported by Computerworld, 72.4% of recruiting leaders now run in-person interviews specifically to combat AI fraud — Google, Cisco and McKinsey have all publicly brought back in-person rounds.
• Amazon and Anthropic explicitly ban AI assistance in interviews, and covert audio capture can breach consent laws in the roughly 13 all-party-consent US states.

So the searchers splitting off from Cluely fall into camps: people who want the same overlay for free (open source), people who want it private and local, and people who liked the live-AI-copilot idea but not the cheating. All three are covered below.

Cluely alternatives at a glance

Prices are from each product’s official pricing page or repository, checked 2 July 2026. AUD figures are approximate conversions. “Claimed” means the stealth claim is the vendor’s or project’s own — nobody independently certifies invisibility, and users of rival tools have reported being spotted.

The 7 best Cluely alternatives in 2026

1. SpeekSearch — the transparent live copilot (for the other side of the mic)

Full disclosure: this is our product, so weigh the pitch accordingly. SpeekSearch takes the part of Cluely that’s genuinely good — AI that listens live and makes you smarter mid-conversation — and drops the deception. You hit record in the browser during a podcast, interview or meeting; it transcribes in real time from your mic (no bot joins the call, so it works for in-person conversations too), and as people, places, products and topics get mentioned, research cards surface with Pin, Ask AI deep-dive, Google and YouTube actions. It is built for whoever is asking the questions — podcasters, journalists, hiring managers, researchers — which is why we call it an interview copilot for the other side of the mic.

Pricing is simple: a free 15-minute lifetime trial with no card, then Starter at A$12/month for 2 hours or Pro at A$25/month for 8 hours of live AI research, with A$5 one-hour top-ups. It runs in the browser, including iPhone Safari. If your use case is transcribing interviews specifically, see our interview transcription guide.

2. Pluely — the best open-source Cluely

Pluely (2,218 GitHub stars, GPL-3.0, latest release v0.1.9 from January 2026) is the most complete true open-source Cluely equivalent. It is a lightweight Tauri desktop app — the project claims roughly 10MB and sub-100ms startup — for macOS, Windows and Linux, where you bring your own API keys for OpenAI, Anthropic or Google plus your own speech-to-text. It is completely free with no paid tier; your only cost is API usage. The project claims its overlay is invisible to screen shares and recordings — that claim is Pluely’s own, and using it that way carries exactly the same ethics and detection exposure as Cluely itself.

3. cheating-daddy — the biggest active free project

cheating-daddy is the largest actively maintained repo in the niche at 5,386 stars (last pushed June 2026). It is a free Electron overlay assistant with a big community and bring-your-own-key economics. Credit where due: the name makes zero pretence about what it’s for, which is more honesty than most of this category manages.

4. Natively — local-first, but read the licence

Natively (1,719 stars, v2.7.0 from June 2026) is an interview copilot, meeting notetaker and lecture recorder that can run 100% offline— local Whisper transcription, Ollama models and on-device vector storage — or with your own cloud API keys. It supports macOS 12+ and Windows 10/11, with no Linux build. One caveat matters: despite marketing itself as open source everywhere, its licence is the “Natively Personal Use Source License v1.0” — source-available, personal and non-commercial use only, not an OSI-approved open-source licence. Still the pick if zero-cloud privacy is your priority.

5. Hedy AI — the ethical live coach

Hedyis the “transparent assistance” option: a real-time conversation coach that listens to meetings, interviews and classes and suggests what to consider saying — with no undetectability claims at all. It runs on Mac, iPhone, Apple Watch, Windows and Android with cloud sync, and supports 30+ languages. Pricing (official page, 2 July 2026): free tier with 5 hours per month and real-time insights for the first 30 minutes of each session; Pro at US$12.99/mo (~A$19) or US$99.99/yr; and a US$299 (~A$450) lifetime licence. A good fit for students, ESL speakers and professionals who want live help they could comfortably disclose.

6. Convo — real-time help for calls you run

Convoaims Cluely’s “real-time help” pitch at sales and customer-success work: live talking points, objection handling and context recall during calls you’re running, then follow-up drafts and CRM updates afterwards. No bot joins — it is a native desktop app capturing audio locally — and it ingests your knowledge base (PDFs, Notion, Slack). Pricing as of 2 July 2026: Starter at US$29.99/mo (~A$45), or US$24.99/mo billed annually; the live in-call assistant sits on the Professional tier at US$69.99/mo (~A$105), or US$59.99/mo annually. Worth knowing: the company is young and independent review coverage is still thin, so trial before committing a team.

7. Pickle Glass — the most stars, effectively abandoned

Pickle Glass has the biggest star count in the space (7,547) and is what “open source Cluely” searchers usually find first — but it has had no pushes since October 2025, which in this fast-shifting niche makes it effectively abandoned. Fine to study, unwise to build on. Two smaller projects round out the field: free-cluely (1,501 stars, stale since April 2026) and OpenCluely (368 stars, actively maintained, focused on coding-interview and online-assessment questions).

Open source Cluely: the real state of play

Half the people searching for Cluely alternatives are specifically hunting an open-source version, so here is the honest map. Star counts and activity were pulled directly from GitHub on 2 July 2026.

Two realities to price in. First, “free” here means free software, not free inference — every BYOK project bills you per token through your own OpenAI, Anthropic or Google account (Natively running fully local models is the exception). Second, every “invisible to screen share” claim in that table is the project’s own, and users of commercial rivals have reported supposedly hidden overlays being visible during screen sharing. Undetectability is a moving target with an entire detection industry aiming at it.

Free Cluely options: what actually costs nothing

• Cluely Starter — free, but capped: limited AI responses and notes, up to 3 file uploads. The invisible overlay is never free.
• Pluely and cheating-daddy — free software plus your own API costs.
• Natively — free and can run entirely offline on local models, so genuinely A$0 ongoing (personal use only).
• Hedy — free tier of 5 hours per month, real-time insights for the first 30 minutes of each session.
• SpeekSearch — free 15-minute lifetime trial, no card, then A$25/month.

Who should stay on Cluely

Honest answer: some people are better off not switching. If you want a polished, zero-setup commercial overlay and you’re comfortable with what it does, Cluely Pro at US$19.99/mo (~A$30) is reasonably priced for the category, and the open-source options all demand API-key setup and tinkering that isn’t for everyone. Stay if you value the packaged product and have read the refund terms with eyes open. Leave if you’re paying — or considering paying — US$149.99/mo for invisibility that employers ban, detection tools target and consent law can reach. And if what you actually wanted all along was meeting notes rather than live answers, you’re in the wrong category entirely — start with our Otter.ai alternatives guide instead.

FAQ

Checked July 2026. Cluely, Hedy and Convo prices were taken from their official pricing pages on 2 July 2026; GitHub star counts and activity were pulled from GitHub the same day. AUD figures are approximate conversions. Detection statistics are attributed to Fabric (a detection vendor) and to Gartner figures reported by Computerworld. Cluely background is covered in depth in our full Cluely review. Prices and repo activity in this space shift quickly — verify before purchasing.