Freeway
Freeway is a free, privacy-first voice-to-text app for Mac that lets you turn speech into text anywhere you're typing. Just press a hotkey, start talking, and Freeway transcribes your speech in real time. When you release the key, the text is automatically inserted exactly where your cursor is — in any app, any website, any text field. No switching windows, no copy-paste, no interruptions to your flow. Speaking is up to 4× faster than typing, which means ideas move from your mind to the screen at the speed they appear. Whether you're writing emails, messages, notes, documents, or forms, Freeway removes friction and keeps you in motion.
Learn more
Handy
Handy is a free, open source, cross-platform speech-to-text app that runs completely offline and puts whatever you say directly into any text field. Press and hold a configurable keyboard shortcut, speak, and release; Handy records your voice, transcribes it locally, and pastes the result into the app you are using. Push-to-talk is enabled by default, but users can switch to a toggle mode that starts and stops recording with separate key presses. Handy supports macOS, Windows, and Linux and keeps voice data on the computer instead of sending audio to cloud services. Users can choose between Whisper models and Parakeet V3, Whisper provides broad multilingual support across more than 99 languages, while Parakeet V3 is optimized for fast CPU performance and automatic language detection. Silence is filtered with voice activity detection, and GPU acceleration is available for Whisper where supported.
Learn more
VoiceTypr
VoiceTypr is an offline, AI-powered voice-to-text tool available for both Windows and macOS that lets you dictate anywhere you can type by simply holding or toggling a hotkey, with automatic transcription directly into applications such as chat editors, code editors, email fields, and text boxes. It supports over 100 languages, offers multiple transcription-model choices (focusing on accuracy or speed), includes smart formatting modes for everything from casual chat to formal documents, and maintains a searchable history of transcriptions that you can export or copy. Crucially, all processing occurs locally on your machine, so your audio stays private. You simply install the app, download your preferred model, set a global hotkey, then speak and ship, whether you’re writing code prompts, emails, notes, or messages. Additional features include drag-and-drop transcription of MP3, WAV, M4A, MP4, or MOV files, global hotkey activation, and hardware hardware-accelerated performance.
Learn more
Superwhisper
Superwhisper is a voice-to-text app that lets users dictate, transcribe, and control writing workflows across apps without relying on the keyboard. The platform works on Mac, Windows, and iOS, with voice input that can be used in tools such as Slack, Cursor, Notion, Claude Code, Codex, and other agentic coding apps. Superwhisper supports push-to-talk, custom shortcuts, file transcription, meeting recording, custom modes, vocabulary settings, and AI-enhanced output. Users can create modes for different tasks, languages, tones, formats, prompts, and applications. The platform supports more than 100 languages and lets users choose from models such as GPT, Claude, Llama, Grok, Gemini, and others. Built for fast-moving professionals, developers, writers, and teams, Superwhisper helps turn speech into polished text, commands, transcripts, and AI-ready prompts.
Learn more
