AI · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Transcribe Your Voice in Terminal Locally
Use hns, a speech-to-text CLI tool to transcribe your voice from your microphone directly to clipboard. Integrate hns with Claude Code, Ollama, LLM, and more CLI tools for powerful workflows. hns transcribes your voice 100% locally using faster-whisper. The whisper model is downloaded automatically on first run and after that, hns can be used completely offline. After transcription, the text is displayed in the terminal (written to stdout) as well as automatically copied to your clipboard, ready to be pasted anywhere with Ctrl+V or Cmd+V. GitHub:…
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites, 1 of them free or with a free tier.
- 1

Hey HN! Braden here, creator of Whispering, an open-source speech-to-text app. I really like dictation. For years, I relied on transcription tools that were almost good, but they were all closed-source. Even a lot of them that claimed to be “local” or “on-device” were still black boxes that left me wondering where my audio really went. So I built Whispering. It’s open-source, local-first, and most importantly, transparent with your data. Your data is stored locally on your device, and your audio goes directly from your machine to a local provider (Whisper C++, Speaches, etc.) or your chosen…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 2
HyNote for Mac▲368Free local transcription that is 100% Private
Aug 2026 · hynote.ai · its alternatives →
- 3
Wave▲298Turn your voice into text — local or cloud, your choice
Jun 2026 · wave.mxv.sh · its alternatives →
- 4

Create content from your audio
2023 · whispertranscribe.com · its alternatives →
- 5

- 6
Aloud▲118Turn spoken feedback into tasks your coding agent can run
Aug 2026 · aloud.sh · its alternatives →
- 7
Whisper Notes▲115Offline AI Speech to Text Transcription for iOS & macOS
2025 · whispernotes.app · its alternatives →
- 8

Learn how to extract text from audio files locally using Python, Whisper, and other powerful tools. Complete setup guide with practical examples.
2025 · pavlinbg.com · its alternatives →
- 9
Walkie▲228Dictation + meetings + read aloud in one app on-device
Apr 2026 · trywalkie.com · its alternatives →
- 10

Speech typing notes and memos
2023 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 11
WhisperWizard▲149Speech to text with smarter transcription
2024 · whisperwizard.com · its alternatives →
- 12

- 13
Whispering▲195Open-source, local-first dictation you can trust
2025 · epicenter.so · its alternatives →
- 14IB
I originally added this to my site to speed up my video editing process. Last year I started a youtube channel and for some of my longer videos it's annoying to rely on youtube or capcut to transcribe when Whisper is open source. Capcut also recently updated their T&Cs to say they own your content if you use their app, so I cancelled my subscription. Another use-case I have is recording my claude prompts as audio, transcribing them, and then pasting them into my terminal. I mostly work on the CLI (claude, ffmpeg, whisper), but I wanted to make a browser version. Not reinventing the wheel…
2025 · meetcosmos.com · its alternatives →
- 15

Local transcripts with speaker labels, timestamps, + export
Dec 2025 · whispersnapper.com · its alternatives →
- 16
Spoke▲102Dictate into any Mac app by holding a key. Spoke runs fully on-device using local AI — no cloud, no account, no subscription. $9.99 one-time.
Mar 2026 · usespoke.app · its alternatives →
- 17

- 18
Stenox▲72Your voice, perfectly transcribed in every app & browser
Jan 2026 · stenox.app · its alternatives →
- 19

I know there are various tools that are supposed to make this easy, but I couldn't find anything that did everything I wanted, so I made this today for fun. The web-based offerings all take forever and seem flaky, and you need to process one video at a time, with no control over the transcription settings. In contrast, my script lets you convert a whole playlist in bulk with full control over everything. It's truly easy to use-- you can clone the repo, install to a venv, and be generating a folder full of high quality transcript text files in under 5 minutes. All you need to do is supply the…
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 20

Record voice memos on iPhone or Apple Watch and get AI transcriptions and summaries delivered to your email. The best voice to text app for capturing ideas on the go.
2022 · whispermemos.com · its alternatives →
- 21
Dictatofree tier, from $20.82/mo▲93I built a macOS dictation app where everything runs on-device. Transcription, auto-correct, translation. No audio or text leaves your machine. It ships with 4 transcription engines you can swap between: WhisperKit (99 languages), NVIDIA Parakeet TDT 0.6B (25 European languages, fastest of the bunch), Qwen3-ASR 0.6B (30 languages), and Apple Speech on macOS 26+. They all run through CoreML/Metal. Whisper is the most versatile, Parakeet wins on raw latency for European languages, Qwen3 does better with CJK. I went with a protocol-based architecture so you pick the engine that fits your…
Feb 2026 · dicta.to · its alternatives →
- 22
TalkFlowy▲75Local real-time voice transcription for Mac
Apr 2026 · talkflowy.com · its alternatives →
- 23

- 24
Echosnap Ai▲62Hi everyone, I’m a solo developer and I’ve been working on a small tool called Echosnap AI. I built it because I often get ideas while I’m walking or doing something else, and speaking always felt like the fastest way to capture them. Echosnap lets you record a note and instantly get a clean transcript. It can also translate your recordings and help you stay organized with tags and folders. I tried to keep the app as simple and minimal as possible. This is my first time sharing something on HN, so any feedback or suggestions would mean a lot. Thanks for taking a moment to check it out.
Nov 2025 · useechosnap.com · its alternatives →
Also compare
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →