Dictato
I 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…
Dictato launched on February 24, 2026 with 93 votes, #397 of 16,628 launches that month and more than 95% of that year's launches.
What it does
Dictato turns speech into text on your Mac. No cloud, no account, no internet needed. Your audio stays on your computer. Press a hotkey, talk, release. Text appears where your cursor is — Gmail, Slack, VS Code, whatever app you're in. Three engines to choose from: Parakeet, Whisper, Apple Supports 25-99 languages depending on which you pick. Optional proofreading and translation, all on-device. 7-day free trial. $9.99 for a two-year license. Requires macOS 14+ and Apple Silicon.
Offline dictation for Mac. Speak, and finished text lands at your cursor, punctuated and structured. On-device, no subscription, 19.99 € once.
macOS 14 or later, Apple Silicon (M1+). Intel Macs are not supported. Live dictation, not a batch transcriber. You speak, the text lands at your cursor. It does not take existing audio files, so for hours of recorded interviews a batch tool fits better. The complete app for 7 days, nothing locked. Then 19.99 € once. Setup asks for two macOS permissions, microphone and accessibility. A third, automation, only if you use website rules or let it pause your music. It is free, it is built in, and it is genuinely decent. Here is where it stops. Apple's own documentation: dictation ends when no speech is detected for 30 seconds. Dictato listens until you release the key, however long you need to…from dicta.to
In the maker’s words, at launch
I 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…
Pricing, as stated on its site
Free tier, paid plans from $20.82/mo — 7-day free trial of full app, then one-time payment of 19.99 € (~$20.82 USD) for lifetime license with unlimited dictation, all four transcription engines, and lifetime updates.
checked October 2026 · prices change
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SaylineJan 2026 · sayline.app · ▲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…
TongueType for macOSMay 2026 · tonguetype.app · ▲109Hi 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…
DictlyOct 2025 · dictly.app · ▲240TL;DR: I built a native macOS dictation app that transcribes locally and instantly. Text appears as you speak (measured ~100 ms first‑character latency). No accounts, no servers, no tracking. Links: • Website: https://dictly.app • Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/dictly-no-keys-just-clarity/id... • Free download; optional Pro tier (pipelines, unlimited history, etc.) What it does Real‑time transcription — streaming text while you talk, not after you stop. Quick‑Capture Overlay (macOS) — global hotkey, drop text into any app/field.…
SpokeMar 2026 · usespoke.app · ▲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.
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