superwhisper

Extremely accurate, voice to text for Mac & iPhone

4.9•19 reviews•

557 followers

Extremely accurate, voice to text for Mac & iPhone

4.9•19 reviews•

557 followers

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AI Dictation Apps

superwhisper was awarded the Privacy Award for AI Dictation Apps in Winter 2025

Superwhisper is an extremely accurate, AI powered, voice to text app for macOS. Write emails, send messages and take notes in 100+ languages at super-human speeds. All processing is done on your device, no WiFi needed.

The Best superwhisper Alternatives

The best superwhisper alternatives are Wispr Flow, Aqua Voice, Willow Voice, Voibe, and MacWhisper.

Wispr Flow

4.7 ·

Choose Wispr Flow if...

✓you need Mac, Windows, and iOS support
✓you want an iOS keyboard for dictation
✓you prefer polished auto-edits and tone matching

See details ↓

Aqua Voice

5.0 ·

Choose Aqua Voice if...

✓you want the lowest latency, fastest dictation
✓you need streaming edits while you dictate
✓you dictate code and technical text frequently

See details ↓

Willow Voice

4.9 ·

Choose Willow Voice if...

✓you mainly write emails, Slack, and DMs
✓you want messages auto-formatted and toned
✓you want strong mobile dictation via keyboard

See details ↓

Voibe

4.8 ·

Choose Voibe if...

✓you want fully offline dictation for privacy
✓you live in Cursor or VS Code daily
✓you want fast voice input for AI prompts

See details ↓

MacWhisper

4.9 ·

Choose MacWhisper if...

✓you mostly transcribe recorded audio files
✓you want a simple, offline transcription app
✓you prefer one-time purchase and minimal UI

See details ↓

What to Consider

superwhisper has become a go-to choice for people who want accurate, privacy-first dictation that runs locally on Mac (and iOS), with power-user features like custom modes and model choice. But the voice-to-text landscape has expanded fast: some tools optimize for cross-platform coverage and “just talk” flow, others for ultra-low latency and streaming edits, and others for polished, ready-to-send writing with tone and formatting tuned to the app you’re in. There are also purpose-built options for developers who dictate into IDEs all day, and simpler transcription-first tools that focus on turning recorded audio into clean text with minimal overhead.

To evaluate alternatives, we looked at real-world fit across workflows (email/Slack, long-form writing, coding/AI prompting, and transcription), plus speed and accuracy, on-device vs cloud privacy posture, platform support (Mac/Windows/iOS and keyboards), customization depth, and pricing approach (free tiers, subscriptions, one-time purchases). We also weighed usability details that affect daily adoption—like how well tools handle formatting, corrections, and context awareness—since the best dictation app is the one you’ll actually use constantly.

Wispr Flow

Speak naturally, write perfectly & 4x faster in every app

4.7 · 55 reviews

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If your biggest constraint is platform coverage, Wispr Flow stands out as the option built to be a single voice layer across devices, earning the People’s Champ Orbit Award for its momentum, breadth, and adoption. The Orbit Awards write-up highlights its focus on making voice a primary input method with cross-platform voice input across Mac, Windows, and iOS.

It’s a strong alternative to superwhisper when you want cloud-powered polish: users describe how it turns speech into clean, well-formatted text in any app, so it feels like an “AI editor” rather than raw dictation. That low-friction feel also shows up in day-to-day use—people like that it doesn’t get in the way when they aren’t actively dictating.

Mobile is where Wispr Flow most clearly differentiates right now. Community feedback repeatedly calls out the iOS keyboard as especially useful, and some users prioritize it because it also supports Windows and iOS support in one product.

The trade-off versus superwhisper’s local-first approach is that users still ask for more offline options and smoother long sessions, citing desires for an offline or privacy-first mode and occasional glitches or latency swings on longer dictations source. If you care about cloud privacy posture, the team notes you can enable a zero data retention Privacy Mode, which can be a useful middle ground for sensitive work.

Best for

Best for people who need fast dictation across Mac, Windows, and iOS, especially with a mobile keyboard.

Standout features

✓Cross-platform Mac, Windows, iOS
✓iOS keyboard for system-wide dictation
✓Auto-edits and formatting in any app
✓Privacy mode with zero data retention

Aqua Voice

Fast Voice Input for Mac and Windows

5.0 · 13 reviews

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Aqua Voice is built for people who want dictation to read like writing, not a transcript, which is exactly why it received the Readability Orbit Award. The Orbit Awards write-up emphasizes Aqua’s focus on producing the cleanest transcripts with minimal editing, especially for long-form dictation.

Compared with superwhisper, Aqua’s differentiator is how aggressively it optimizes for speed and in-the-moment refinement. Users who switched from Wispr Flow cite that Aqua is extremely fast, and also praise its streaming mode for making “edit as you go” voice workflows feel natural.

For technical writing and coding, Aqua gets repeated praise as being insanely fast and accurate, with one reviewer calling it the fastest and most accurate voice-to-text app they’ve tried across many competitors. People also highlight reliability details such as how interrupted recordings are still stored and they’ve never lost any data.

The main trade-offs are platform and offline coverage: reviewers explicitly list offline and the lack of an iOS app as gaps. If you’re mostly on Mac and want maximum speed, streaming corrections, and highly readable output, Aqua can be a better fit than superwhisper; if you need fully local transcription everywhere, those gaps matter.

Best for

Ideal for Mac users who want ultra-fast, highly readable dictation with streaming edits, including developers.

Standout features

✓Ultra-low latency dictation
✓Streaming edits while speaking
✓Screen-context accuracy corrections
✓Reliable transcript history and recovery

Willow Voice

Voice dictation that actually works

4.9 · 8 reviews

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Willow Voice is optimized for everyday communication—emails, Slack, and DMs—rather than deep model-tweaking, which is why it won the Everyday Communication Orbit Award. The Orbit Awards write-up frames Willow as the tool that makes messages feel ready to send through auto-formatting and tone, especially for people who live in inboxes and chats.

In practice, users love the “works everywhere” behavior: one reviewer describes how, whatever they’re doing on their Mac, they can speak and their words appear typed, which made them much more productive and prolific. That system-wide feel makes it a real alternative to superwhisper when your priority is communication velocity more than custom workflows.

Willow also differentiates through app-aware output. Community members call out that it’s app-aware so it formats differently for email vs Slack, which helps reduce the “dictation cleanup” burden. People also cite a fast feedback loop, saying the team responds quickly in their Slack community and the product is improving rapidly source.

The main downside to be aware of is multilingual edge cases: one user notes that enabling fast dictation can sometimes translate dictated language to English when that’s not intended. If you want a smoother default experience with strong formatting for everyday messaging—plus the broader ecosystem emphasis on mobile keyboard workflows noted in the Orbit write-up—Willow can feel more turnkey than superwhisper for communication-heavy days.

Best for

Best for people who write lots of emails and chat messages and want polished, app-appropriate formatting by default.

Standout features

✓App-aware formatting for email vs chat
✓System-wide dictation on Mac
✓Fast team feedback and iteration
✓Mobile keyboard-style dictation focus

Voibe

A super fast dictation app designed for AI workflows.

4.8 · 6 reviews

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Voibe is a strong superwhisper alternative when your dictation is tightly coupled to AI workflows and developer tooling, and you want privacy without cloud round-trips. Users try it specifically for privacy-focused dictation and stay because it’s stupidly fast, turning voice into a habit rather than an occasional feature.

Its standout edge is how well it fits into “talk to AI” loops. One reviewer says Voibe is built for AI power users, praising that it’s fully offline and private so prompts and code snippets don’t go to the cloud, and that speaking richer context improved their results with ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity source.

For developers, the deep IDE integration is a differentiator versus more general dictation apps. Users highlight its Cursor and VS Code integration that resolves file and folder names correctly, which reduces the annoying “fix the nouns” editing that can slow down voice-first coding.

The key limitation is scope: the maker explicitly notes the UX is not designed for meeting notes and that Voibe doesn’t recognize voices. If your goal is system-wide, offline dictation optimized for coding and AI prompting rather than meeting transcription, Voibe can be the more purpose-built choice.

Best for

Best for developers and AI power users who want offline, privacy-first dictation with Cursor/VS Code integration.

Standout features

✓Fully offline, privacy-first dictation
✓Cursor and VS Code name resolution
✓Very low-latency transcription feel
✓System-wide dictation across macOS apps

MacWhisper

High Quality Text Transcription with OpenAI's Whisper on Mac

4.9 · 7 reviews

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MacWhisper is the most compelling alternative when your primary job is turning recorded audio into text, not live dictation into every app. It won the Transcription Purist Orbit Award because it stays focused on reliable, local transcription with minimal UI and a straightforward “audio → text” workflow source.

That focus can be a better fit than superwhisper if you’re processing interviews, lectures, podcasts, or meeting recordings and you don’t need elaborate modes or system-wide rewriting. In community threads about coding tools, users even mention using it directly inside editors by holding a key, noting it works in any text field and replaces system dictation.

MacWhisper also makes trade-offs that matter for storage and devices. The maker explains that a larger Whisper model can be more accurate and support more languages, but the larger model version is paid due to hosting constraints, and the largest models can cause iOS issues because the largest model is 3GB.

If you want a local transcription workhorse that won’t try to become an “assistant,” MacWhisper is a great complement or replacement for superwhisper in audio-heavy workflows. If you mainly dictate live text with lots of app-specific formatting and commands, you may find superwhisper’s mode system more aligned.