The category, briefly
"Invisible AI overlay" is a small but rapidly maturing category: a desktop window that listens to your meeting, transcribes it, and renders LLM answers in a surface that screen-sharing software can't see. Cluely popularized the term. Cloak is one of the open-source alternatives.
Where Cloak is different
Local-first by default
Cloak runs everything that can run locally — audio capture, transcription buffer, conversation history — on your Mac. Network traffic only happens when you send a prompt to the model provider you chose. Nothing about your screen, voice, or context is uploaded by Cloak itself.
Open source desktop client
The Tauri + React 19 desktop client is open source on GitHub. You can read the audio pipeline, audit the IPC contract, and verify that the overlay window is genuinely non-capturable. The managed-tier worker and some Pro modules stay closed source, but the part that actually runs on your Mac is auditable.
Bring-Your-Own-Key forever-free
The free tier is BYOK and stays that way. Drop in your own OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or Groq key and use Cloak with no subscription. Pro is for people who want a managed tier, expert personas, resume-grounded answers, and the career workspace — not for unlocking the basics.
Native Rust, not Electron
Cloak is a Tauri 2 app. The capture surface is Rust talking to ScreenCaptureKit, CoreAudio, and
CPAL directly. RAM footprint stays small (typically under 200 MB resident) and the overlay
window is a real NSPanel, not a HTML window dressed up to look like one.
macOS only, on purpose
Cloak ships macOS-only because the screenshot-proof guarantee depends on
NSPanel + sharingType: .none. We will not ship a Windows or Linux
build that quietly drops that guarantee. If you need cross-platform, Cluely or one of the
Electron alternatives is the better pick.
Where Cloak is similar
- Both render in a screen-share-invisible overlay.
- Both stream LLM answers in roughly under a second.
- Both have persona / mode systems for different interview situations.
- Both work with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and most web-based meeting tools.
Quick comparison
A rough mental model — not feature-by-feature parity, just the trade-offs we hear about most:
- Pricing model: Cloak is free with BYOK forever; Pro starts at a flat monthly. Cluely is subscription-only on the consumer tier.
- Source availability: Cloak desktop is open source; Cluely is closed.
- Platforms: Cloak is macOS only; Cluely covers more OSes.
- Local-first guarantees: Cloak runs capture and history locally; cloud-only tools route more through their backend.
- Career workspace: Cloak Pro bundles resume parsing, JD gap analysis, company dossier, and negotiation coaching in-app.
Who should pick which
If you want a polished consumer experience on any OS and don't care about source visibility, Cluely is a strong product. If you're on macOS and want a tool that you can inspect, run with your own key, and trust to keep capture local, Cloak is the alternative built for that.