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Buzz

Transcribe and translate recordings on your own computer, with exports to subtitle formats.

Instead of Otter.ai, cloud transcription

S · ToolOpen sourceWorks offline
github.com/chidiwilliams/buzz
Screenshot of the Buzz website

Screenshot from github.com/chidiwilliams/buzz, taken 2026-10-30, shown to help you recognise the tool. It belongs to its maker. Ask us to remove it.

A recorded interview is an hour of somebody's voice and a long evening of typing it up, and Buzz exists to shorten the evening. You drop in an audio or video file, a YouTube link or the live microphone, and it transcribes on your own computer, with speaker identification, translation and exports to TXT, SRT and VTT. It is MIT licensed and says it works offline.

Buzz scores a 5 on lock-in, a 4 on self-direction, power and delivery and a 3 on footprint and longevity.

Macs need Apple silicon now, since the last version for Intel Macs is 1.4.5, and the Windows installer is unsigned, so expect a warning. One person's repository holds it, the page names no funding and shows no release date, and Longevity is scored with that in mind.

    What stands out

  • Transcribes audio, video and live microphone input on your own computer
  • Speaker identification, translation and subtitle exports
  • Newer Macs only, and one person's repository
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For comparison, we also reviewed Otter.ai (14/30) as a benchmark.

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