Cluely and Sway both surface real-time suggestions during calls. The difference is where your audio goes — and what happens when a server gets breached.
Cluely's architecture sends audio to its servers for processing and transcript storage. That means your private meetings — sales conversations, client calls, discovery calls — live in Cluely's cloud. Sway processes audio locally on your Mac. Nothing is recorded, nothing is transmitted, nothing is at risk. The 2025 breach is a reminder that stored data can always be exposed.
Feature comparison
How Sway and Cluely stack up on the features that matter most.
| Feature | Sway | Cluely |
|---|---|---|
| Real-time AI suggestions during the call | ✓ | ✓ |
| Audio processed locally on your device | ✓ | ✗ — cloud processing |
| Meeting transcripts stored server-side | No — never stored | Yes — breach risk |
| Data breach history | None | 2025 — 83,000 users |
| private, with no meeting bot (Zoom, Meet, Teams) | ✓ | Disputed |
| No account required to download | ✓ | ✗ |
| Follow-up draft generation | ✓ | ✓ |
| Meeting recap after call | ✓ | ✓ |
| macOS native desktop app | ✓ | ✓ |
| Free tier available | ✓ — 7-day trial | ✗ — paid only |
The privacy difference
The 2025 Cluely breach is not an anomaly — it's the logical consequence of any architecture that stores sensitive conversations on a server. Sway was designed from the start to eliminate that risk.
Sway processes audio locally using your device's microphone and on-device compute. Your meeting conversations are analyzed in real time and then discarded — nothing is recorded, nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored anywhere.
Cluely's breach was possible because it stored transcripts. Sway never creates that attack surface. Only the text of a specific prompt you send is forwarded to an AI provider — and it is not retained. Meeting audio never leaves your device.
Sway uses macOS private mode to render below the OS capture layer. It is private to Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and screen recorders. The people on the call see only you.
If post-call transcript search and cloud-synced meeting history are critical to your workflow, and you are comfortable with the server-side storage trade-off, Cluely offers those features. Sway does not store transcripts server-side by design. If your priority is real-time AI assistance with the strongest possible privacy posture, Sway is the right choice.
Who switches to Sway
Sway is for people whose conversations cannot afford to end up on someone else's server.
Your answers, your examples, your vulnerabilities — none of that should live in a cloud database that can be breached. Sway keeps it on your device.
Deal terms, pricing, customer names — sensitive commercial data you cannot afford to have exposed in a third-party breach.
Some conversations are regulated. Uploading them to a vendor's cloud may violate attorney-client privilege or data residency requirements.
If your transcripts were among the 83,000 exposed, Sway is the local-first alternative where that can never happen.
Pricing
Sway starts with a 7-day free trial — no account, no credit card. Cluely requires a paid subscription before you can use it.
7-day free trial. No account required. Download and start using Sway in under two minutes.
Unlimited sessions, full private mode (private, with no meeting bot), and priority AI response speed.
Frequently asked questions
Sway and Cluely both provide real-time AI suggestions during calls. The key difference is what happens to your audio. Cluely stores meeting transcripts on its servers — and in 2025 it suffered a data breach exposing approximately 83,000 users' private conversations. Sway processes all audio locally on your Mac and stores nothing server-side. Only the text of a specific prompt is sent to an AI provider — meeting audio never leaves your device.
Yes. In 2025, Cluely experienced a data breach that exposed the private meeting transcripts of approximately 83,000 users. Because Cluely stores transcripts server-side, those conversations were at risk. Sway is a privacy-first alternative that processes all audio locally and never stores recordings or transcripts on any server.
Yes. Sway offers a 7-day free trial and requires no account or credit card to get started. It provides real-time AI suggestions during meetings, processes audio locally on your Mac, and is private, with no meeting bot — with stronger privacy guarantees than Cluely.
No. Sway does not record, transcribe, or store meeting audio on any server. Audio is processed locally in real time on your Mac. Only the text of a specific prompt you send is forwarded to an AI provider — and it is not retained. Your conversations stay on your device.
Yes. Sway uses macOS private mode to render its window below the OS capture layer used by Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. It is private, with no meeting bot, screen recording, and proctoring software. Unlike Cluely, Sway stores no audio data that could be exposed in a breach.
Sway offers a 7-day free trial. Sway Plus is $30/month or $216/year. Cluely requires a paid subscription. Check each product's current pricing page for up-to-date rates.
Sway starts with a 7-day free trial. No account required. Your audio never leaves your Mac — run your first session in under two minutes.