Show HN: Free Alternative to Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, and Monologue

Was searching for this this morning and settled on https://handy.computer/

There's also an offline-running software called VoiceInk for macos. No need for groq or external AI.

https://github.com/Beingpax/VoiceInk

To build your own STT (speech-to-text) with a local model and and modify it, just ask Claude code to build it for you with this workflow.

F12 -> sox for recording -> temp.wav -> faster-whisper -> pbcopy -> notify-send to know what’s happening

https://github.com/sathish316/soupawhisper

I found a Linux version with a similar workflow and forked it to build the Mac version. It look less than 15 mins to ask Claude to modify it as per my needs.

F12 Press → arecord (ALSA) → temp.wav → faster-whisper → xclip + xdotool

https://github.com/ksred/soupawhisper

Thanks to faster-whisper and local models using quantization, I use it in all places where I was previously using Superwhisper in Docs, Terminal etc.

I just vibe coded a my own NaturalReader replacement. The subscription was $110/year... and I just canceled it.

Chatterbox TTS (from Resemble AI) does the voice generation, WhisperX gives word-level timestamps so you can click any word to jump, and FastAPI ties it all together with SSE streaming so audio starts playing before the whole thing is done generating.

There's a ~5s buffer up front while the first chunk generates, but after that each chunk streams in faster than realtime. So playback rarely stalls.

It took about 4 hours today... wild.

i've used macwhisper (paid), superwhisper (paid), and handy (free) but now prefer hex (free):

https://github.com/kitlangton/Hex

for me it strikes the balance of good, fast, and cheap for everyday transcription. macwhisper is overkill, superwhisper too clever, and handy too buggy. hex fits just right for me (so far)

Since many are asking about apps with simillar capabilities I’m very happy with MacWhisper. Has Parakeet, near instant transcription of my lengthy monologues. All local.

Edit: Ah but Parakeet I think isn’t available for free. But very worthwhile single purchase app nonetheless!

Sounds like there's plenty of interest in those kind of tools. I'm not a huge fun API transcriptions given great local models.

I build https://github.com/bwarzecha/Axii to keep EVERYTHING locally and be fully open source - can be easily used at any company. No data send anywhere.

For those using something like this daily, what key combinations do you use to record and cancel. I’m using my capslock right now but was curious about others

Why do people find the need to market as "free alternative to xyz" when its a basic utility? I take it as an instant signal that the dev is a copycat and mostly interested in getting stars and eyeballs rather than making a genuinely useful high quality product.

Just use handy: https://github.com/cjpais/Handy

This thread is a beautiful intro into our near future. Yet more and more custom coded software. Takes me back to the days of late 90s. Loving this!

https://github.com/rabfulton/Auriscribe

My take for X11 Linux systems. Small and low dependency except for the model download.

I created Voibe which takes a slightly different direction and uses gpt-4o-transcribe with a configurable custom prompt to achieve maximum accuracy (much better than Whisper). Requires your own OpenAI API key.

https://github.com/corlinp/voibe

I do see the name has since been taken by a paid service... shame.

Do any of these works as an iOS keyboard to replace the awful voice transcription Apple is currently shipping?

MacOS only. May this help you skip a click.

Nice! I vibe coded the same this weekend but for OpenAI however less polished https://github.com/sonu27/voicebardictate

Is it possible to customise the key binding? Most of these services let you customise the binding, and also support toggle for push-to-talk mode.

Does anyone know of an effective alternative for Android?

Seeing this thread, sounds a blog post comparing the offerings would be useful

Could you make it use Parakeet? That's an offline model that runs very quickly even without a GPU, so you could get much lower latency than using an API.

Is there a tool that preserves the audio? I want both, the transcript and the audio.

Utter uses your OpenAI key (~$1/month). https://utter.to/. Has an iPhone app.

title lacks: for Mac

Saved you a click: Mac only and actually Grok; local inference too slow.

Won't be free when xAI starts charging.

Anything similar for iOS?

Spokenly?