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Alternatives to Otter.ai and cloud dictation
Turn speech into text on your own computer, so the recording stays yours.
Ranked by score out of 30, most convivial first.
Handy
Press a shortcut, speak, and the words appear in whatever app you are using, transcribed on your own computer.
Vibe
Local audio and video transcription with batch jobs, speaker labels and a long list of export formats.
Buzz
Transcribe and translate recordings on your own computer, with exports to subtitle formats.
Speech Note
Notes you dictate, read aloud and translate, all processed on a Linux desktop with no network connection.
VoiceInk
A Mac dictation app with local models, free to build from source and paid if you want the ready-made download.
For comparison
The big names these tools are measured against. We review them as benchmarks, so they sit outside the directory.
About these tools
Dictation and transcription used to mean sending audio to a company that listens, learns and keeps a copy. These tools run speech models on your own machine instead. Handy types what you say into any app, VoiceInk does the same on a Mac, Buzz and Vibe transcribe recordings with exports to subtitle formats, and Speech Note adds text to speech and translation on Linux.
They need a reasonably recent computer and a download of the models first, and speech models make mistakes, so check the result before you trust it.
How to choose
Decide whether you want live dictation into other apps or transcripts of recordings. Handy and VoiceInk are built for the first, Buzz and Vibe for the second. Then check the platform, since several of these belong to one system, and look at who is paying for the work.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free alternative to Otter.ai?
Buzz and Vibe transcribe recordings on your own computer, and their code is MIT licensed.
Can I dictate without sending audio to the cloud?
Yes. Handy says its processing is entirely local, and Speech Note says the same for Linux. Models download first, then work offline.