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Dev tools · November 14, 2025

Chirp – Local Windows dictation with ParakeetV3 no executable required

I’ve been working in fairly locked‑down Windows environments where I’m allowed to run Python, but not install or launch new `.exe` files. In addition the built-in windows dictations are blocked (the only good one isn't local anyway). At the same time, I really wanted accurate, fast dictation without sending audio to a cloud service, and without needing a GPU. Most speech‑to‑text setups I tried either required special launchers, GPU access, or were awkward to run day‑to‑day. To scratch that itch, I built Chirp, a Windows dictation app that runs fully locally, uses NVIDIA’s ParakeetV3 model,…

Chirp – Local Windows dictation with ParakeetV3 no executable required launched on November 14, 2025 with 34 votes, #511 of 9,795 launches that month and more than 90% of that year's launches.

Visit github.com ↗Alternativestop 5% of November 2025

In plain words

Chirp is a Windows dictation tool that performs speech-to-text locally using NVIDIA's ParakeetV3 model, without requiring GPU access or executable files. Designed for restricted computing environments, it runs entirely through Python and manages dependencies with uv, making it accessible to anyone who can run Python scripts. The tool offers accuracy comparable to larger models while keeping audio processing on-device and eliminating the need to send recordings to cloud services.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

Contribute to Whamp/chirp-stt development by creating an account on GitHub.

Chirp is a Windows dictation app that runs fully locally using ParakeetV3 STT and is managed end-to-end with uv . Chirp does not require the ability to run executable files (like .exe) on Windows. It was designed so that if you're allowed to run Python on your machine, you can run Chirp. ParakeetV3 has indistinguishable accuracy from Whisper-large-V3 (multilingual WER 4.91 vs 5.05) but is 17x faster and only requires a CPU while Whisper models of comparable accuracy require GPU's. cd ~ git clone https: // github.com / Whamp / chirp.git chirp - stt cd chirp - stt uv run python - m chirp.setup # one-time setup and model downloading (Optional) Add chirp command to your PATH for convenience:…from github.com

In the maker’s words, at launch

I’ve been working in fairly locked‑down Windows environments where I’m allowed to run Python, but not install or launch new `.exe` files. In addition the built-in windows dictations are blocked (the only good one isn't local anyway). At the same time, I really wanted accurate, fast dictation without sending audio to…

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