Dictly

In plain words

Dictly is a native macOS voice-to-text application that transcribes speech locally in real-time, displaying text as the user speaks with approximately 100 milliseconds latency. It requires no cloud services, accounts, or tracking. The app includes a global hotkey overlay for quick capture into any application, custom processing pipelines, and dictionary profiles for domain-specific terms. A free version is available with optional Pro features for advanced pipelines and unlimited history.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

Dictly v1.2 introduces faster, smarter on-device dictation with new Quick Capture context, metadata chips, and visual refinements. Stay private, work faster, and enjoy a smoother, more customizable workflow — still 100 % offline and entirely on your device.

Dictly turns speech into polished, structured text — instantly and entirely on your device. No servers. No data collection. No delay.

In the maker’s words, at launch

TL;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…

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  SaylineJan 2026 · sayline.app · ▲83

  I 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…

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  DictatoFeb 2026 · dicta.to · ▲93

  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…

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  TongueType for macOSMay 2026 · tonguetype.app · ▲109

  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…

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  CodictateApr 2026 · codictate.app · ▲72

  I'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.

• 
  Smart Dictation2025 · apps.apple.com · ▲90

  Multilingual transcription & translation for Mac

• 
  TalkFlowyApr 2026 · talkflowy.com · ▲75

  Local real-time voice transcription for Mac

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