AI · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to VTS - Voice Typing Studio
I wanted Whisper-level dictation on my Intel 2020 iMac without: * paying a monthly fee for the privilege of using my own API key, * hauling an 800 MB local model, or * copy-paste gymnastics from a floating window. So I built VTS (Voice Typing Studio). What it is: * 5 MB notarised menu-bar app. Press a toggle hot-key → talk → text lands wherever the cursor is. * Bring-your-own OpenAI / Groq key. Nothing touches my servers. * Universal binary – runs on Intel and Apple silicon. * MIT-licensed; core stays free/open. If future features justify it, a pro tier may appear. Repo, DMG, and…
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.
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Hi HN, I'm a longtime web dev, but this is my first macOS app. Feedback is very welcome <3 I built TongueType because every dictation app I tried failed at least one of three things: it sent my audio to someone's cloud, it charged me monthly fee, or it felt clunky or enterprisy. The cloud thing kills it for anything sensitive. The subscription thing is insulting for what amounts to "Whisper + a hotkey." TongueType runs Whisper locally on Apple Silicon via CoreML. It's built to feel like a second keyboard: tap the hotkey, talk, let go, words appear. It sits in the menu bar (no dock icon, no…
May 2026 · tonguetype.app · its alternatives →
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NovaVoice▲578Hey HN, Today I’d like to show what I’ve recently built with my 2 friends. We’ve called it Nova. The idea is to built all-purpose AI Voice Assistant, which is able to interact with mail, to-do apps, messengers and socials, task trackers, apps like UberEats, Notion and some other daily apps. How we decided to work on it: We’ve recently read YC Request for startups Summer25 and were inspired by the idea of AI Voice Assistant for Mail by YC partner Tyler Bosmeny. What we’ve got: We’ve gone a bit further than Assistant for mail only and connected Gmail, Todoist, Google Calendar, and…
Apr 2026 · novavoice.app · its alternatives →
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Luke from ElevenLabs here. We just released Scribe Realtime v2, our new real-time Speech to Text model. We rebuilt it from the ground up around a new architecture that uses predictive transcription – it anticipates the next likely word before it’s spoken. That makes it both fast (around 150 ms latency) and highly accurate. Scribe v2 Realtime outperforms every low latency transcription model across 30 commonly used EU and Asian languages – 93.5% accuracy, compared to Gemini 2.5 Flash (91.4%), GPT-4o MiniTranscribe (90.7%), and Deepgram Nova 3 (85%). It supports 90+ languages including…
2025 · elevenlabs.io · its alternatives →
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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 →
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Context-aware voice keyboard for any app
2024 · talktastic.com · its alternatives →
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Sayline▲83I built a voice dictation app for macOS mostly because I was tired of how awful Siri is and I didn't want to pay a subscription for cloud tools. The app uses NVIDIA's Parakeet v3 (TDT) as the primary engine. Inference is handled by the FluidAudio library. It's insanely fast on M-series chips. For Intel users, I added local Whisper support ranging from Tiny up to Large v3 Turbo (quantized to save space). The interesting part was the AI integration. I originally tried to pipeline the ASR output into Apple's Intelligence Foundation Model. It was a nightmare, because the content moderation…
Jan 2026 · sayline.app · its alternatives →
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VTT for Mac▲88Voice-to-text for macOS with a fully on-device option
Jun 2026 · vtt.the-ihor.com · its alternatives →
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Hey HN! We were part of YC S24, ended up pivoting around. Made dictation that worked really well, and decided to go all in on agentic. We've done two major things. 1. Scribe is a revamp of our product. Continually learns your style (can get into details if comments want). TLDR; we fingerprint based off your edits, and make dictation sound more and more like you. Post-trained Llama 3.1 8b. 2. Dictation is completely free. Unlimited unpersonalized dictation for everyone.
Jul 2026 · willowvoice.com · its alternatives →
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Free AI transcription: convert video and audio to text, translate into 120 languages, download SRT, VTT, ASS or TXT, or export the video with subtitles on it.
2022 · freesubtitles.ai · its alternatives →
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Hi HN! Last year the project I launched here got a lot of good feedback on creating speech to speech AI on the ESP32. Recently I revamped the whole stack, iterated on that feedback and made our project fully open-source—all of the client, hardware, firmware code. This Github repo turns an ESP32-S3 into a realtime AI speech companion using the OpenAI Realtime API, Arduino WebSockets, Deno Edge Functions, and a full-stack web interface. You can talk to your own custom AI character, and it responds instantly. I couldn't find a resource that helped set up a reliable, secure websocket (WSS) AI…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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VibeSonic▲64Not just dictation and private AI voice toolkit
Apr 2026 · vibesonic.ai · its alternatives →
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Stet▲68Smart open-source dictation that sounds like you, not AI.
Apr 2026 · stet.me · its alternatives →
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Heynds▲125Hey everyone, I'm excited to share Heynds, a new desktop app for macOS and Windows (Linux coming soon!) that combines voice dictation with a powerful AI writing assistant to significantly boost your productivity. First and foremost, I know that many solutions like this already exist, but I needed my own, something faster than all the others, that both integrates speech-to-text and a writing assistant in an all-in-one app. The core idea is to let you work much faster by: * Voice-to-Text: Speak naturally, and Heynds transcribes your words into perfectly formatted text in real-time. Think of it…
2025 · heynds.com · its alternatives →
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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 →
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Voxos is an open-source desktop voice assistant that aims to put Clippy to shame while supporting new desktop workflows powered by LLMs. Tired of copy and pasting ChatGPT responses between your web browser and IDE? Does your copilot not quite do what you need it to do? I invite you to give Voxos a try and maybe even become a contributor!
2024 · gitlab.com · its alternatives →
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Vox ▲27On-device AI dictation for Mac and Windows. Press, speak, paste — no cloud round-trip, no app account, no waiting.
Jun 2026 · vox.rizenhq.com · its alternatives →
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dictate.▲103Replace your iPhone keyboard with AI voice typing
Mar 2026 · usedictate.app · its alternatives →
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Codictate▲72I've built an AI dictation tool (like many others), but this time I have taken the time to benchmark all of the 34 models that we provide, so users can actually make a qualified choice on what model should be the daily driver. The best is that it's open source, so if you think we can improve something, please come and help out.
Apr 2026 · codictate.app · its alternatives →
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Stenox▲72Your voice, perfectly transcribed in every app & browser
Jan 2026 · stenox.app · its alternatives →
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I wanted a voice-to-text app but didn't trust any of the proprietary ones with my privacy. So I decided to see if I could vibe code it with 0 macOS app & Swift experience. It uses a local binary of whisper.cpp (a fast implementation of OpenAI's Whisper voice-to-text model in C++). Github: https://github.com/richardwu/openwhisper I also decided to take this as an opportunity to compare 3 agentic coding harnesses: Cursor w/ Opus 4.6: - Best one-shot UI by far - Didn't get permissioning correct - Had issues making the "Cancel recording" hotkey being turned on all the…
Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
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VoxyAI▲5Talk. Format. Paste. AI voice dictation for Mac.
Jan 2026 · jefferyabbott.com · its alternatives →
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I was laid off recently and, instead of looking for another job right away, I decided to build something I always wanted: a transcription tool that respects user privacy. Existing transcription tools often require internet connectivity, send your private audio to cloud servers, or lock you into monthly subscriptions. I wanted something different—so I built WhisperBuddy, a privacy-first AI transcription app that runs entirely on your machine. WhisperBuddy uses OpenAI’s Whisper model (see: https://github.com/openai/whisper). While the model may not always deliver the…
2025 · whisperbuddy.com · its alternatives →
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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 →