Best local Whisper dictation for Mac, iOS, and Windows - live in-app transcription, always offline.
Completely free local dictation on Mac, Windows, and iPhone - Whisper and Parakeet models, no subscription.
Open-source local Whisper dictation for Mac - one-time price from $25, auditable codebase.
Polished cloud dictation for Mac and Windows - the most refined voice UX for those comfortable with cloud.
Cloud dictation tuned for coding vocabulary and technical phrasing - BYOK model routing.
Apple's local dictation engine in macOS Sonoma+ - free, on-device on Apple Silicon, works in any text field.
Local Whisper for macOS and iOS by Sindre Sorhus - one-time price, file and live transcription.
MacWhisper is Mac-only, so Windows and Linux users need a different tool. Typilot and Superwhisper both run local Whisper on Windows - audio never leaves the device. Typilot also supports Linux. Spokenly is a free option for Windows and Mac.
Several - Spokenly is free with local Whisper and Parakeet models on Mac and Windows, macOS Dictation is free on Apple Silicon Macs, and Aiko has a free TestFlight trial period. Typilot offers a 3-day trial of the full feature set.
Typilot adds 27 built-in AI commands (write, polish, summarize, reply, translate) that run inline in any app, plus meeting recap with on-device speaker diarization and AI autocomplete. All processing stays local via Whisper and Ollama - nothing leaves your machine.
MacWhisper excels at batch transcription of pre-recorded audio files and is cheaper (from $59 one-time). Superwhisper is built around live in-app dictation first and adds iOS and Windows support. For file-in/text-out workflows MacWhisper is purpose-built; for real-time typing replacement in any app, Superwhisper or Typilot are better fits.
3-day full-feature trial. No credit card. Works on macOS, Windows, and Linux.