Spokenly vs. Superwhisper

Spokenly in local mode is what I use. It works well enough. And is free ofc

Nvidia Parakeet

Honestly you can actually save your money on a monthly sub, as a student, unless you really need a specific feature Put a groq API key (Groq not Grok) into either and they offer generous free limits on whisper 3 turbo for transcription and any of the medium sized LLMs for transcript cleaning. Plenty of tutorials out there on how to do that on either app, they're both extremely similar. If you want to keep it local Parakeetv3 model is extremely fast and will run even on a potato, its very light, just download inside either app to get raw voice to text

I’ve been using Spokenly on my Mac since it first came out and have never felt the need to explore alternatives. I use BYOK and do not pay the subscription. If Spokenly ever pulls a Cotypist move, I wouldn’t miss it at all since there are a lot of players in this space. I’ve tried both Spokenly and Superwhisper on iOS. I think because of iOS restrictions, neither is as good as they perform on Mac. they have to implement their own keyboard which hosts their microphone button, but for when you actually need or want to type characters, the keyboards suck. and even though I use the same settings, keys, and prompts, I get a much higher failure rate on iOS than I ever get on Mac. some additional circumstances require app switching between the app in which you want to type and the dictation app to activate recording, which is not at all seamless and often causes you to lose your place in the app where you intended to type. this is especially bad with a few apps, including Reddit mobile.

Hey, I'm the developer of Spokenly. My advice: start with the local models and see if they're good enough for you. If not, add your own OpenAI or Deepgram API key. Both options cost nothing in Spokenly.

Just wanted to say that I'm a big fan of Spokenly. Nice work!

for a student, i would test the bring-your-own-key path first before paying monthly. the accuracy gap is usually smaller than the workflow gap. try the same 5 minute test in the apps you actually write in: notes, docs, browser text boxes, maybe your code editor if you use one. check three things: how fast it inserts, whether punctuation cleanup is annoying, and whether fixing mistakes takes more time than typing would have. if you dictate private notes or class material, also decide upfront when you want local-only vs cloud. that matters more than a tiny difference in transcript quality.

Voicenotes also has the dictation feature. It has app in all platforms and supports multiple device login as well. All under same single subscription.

i use vowen its free and the updates are pretty useful you should definitely check it out and the developers respond pretty fast too if you have any issues

used both for a while. superwhisper feels more polished and the shortcut workflow is smoother, but spokenly with parakeet local is genuinely hard to beat for free. if privacy matters or you're on a tight budget, spokenly local is the move. superwhisper if you want something that just works out of the box with less tinkering.

If you are a student, you have a better way to do it. Go to the source code of VoiceInk, clone it and build it for yourself. You will pay a little time (under 2-3 hours with guidance from any LLM on the market), but then you won't ever have to pay a penny for anyone; everything is using your own local compute

i just “git cloned” voiceink and compiled it (first time mac user) workd wonderfull, fast, has tons of customization and its local, privacy first…

Small disclosure: I’m the dev behind EnviousWispr, so obviously biased, but this thread is basically the exact problem I built it for. I agree with the general advice here: as a student, I’d try the free/local/BYOK path before committing to another monthly subscription. Spokenly and Superwhisper are both solid, but if your main use case is “hit a hotkey, talk naturally, get cleaned-up text pasted back,” you may not need to pay right away. I just launched EnviousWispr on r/macapps today. It’s a free, open-source Mac-native dictation app with local transcription and local AI polishing. No account, no subscription, works offline, and there’s optional BYOK for OpenAI/Gemini if you prefer cloud polishing. Launch post is here if you want to compare it alongside the others: https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1uobt7v/os_enviouswispr_wispr_flow_but_free_opensource/

Aside from Apple dictation, which is pretty good and free, you could use another simple, good and free app called Handy. Like in many other (free) STT apps, in Handy you can use the (excellent) local Parakeet v.3 model. But recently Handy also added the possibility to use the Nemotron Streaming 3.5 model (and quite a few others), which is just as fast and probably even more accurate. Spokenly is a great app too, as is TypeWhisper. You can use these for free with Parakeet and quite few other models. Also check out FluidVoice (free), which is very feature-rich.

dont know what poor person dislike it, but i double Handy app recommendation, cos it is gold!

Spokenly can be used entirely for free with Nvidia Parakeet. You do not need to pay monthly. If you have an M series Mac, it is a no brainer. Just go to the Models section and be sure to pick Parakeet (V2 if English only, V3 if multilingual). The very first dictation will be slightly slow as the model loads, but everything after will be lightning fast and way faster than even the built in Apple Dictation.

Spokenly's local models are a decent free option if you don't mind the initial load time and occasional accuracy hiccups. Superwhisper has better polish but costs more. I went with DictaFlow since it types directly into any field across apps and handles mid-sentence corrections easily, which saved me the reloading frustration.

A lot of unjustified downvotes and no response from u/New_Yorker1234 Not the most fruitful of threads I would say.

Just use fluidvoice. Free open-source and has all the bells a whistles. If you want to spend money, donate it to the cause. https://altic.dev/fluid