Show HN: Free alternative to Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, and Monologue • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Free alternative to Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, and Monologue

#111

Post by arach » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 2:51 PM UTC

odiroot wrote: post #109

digitalbase wrote: post #14

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

Not sure if it's just me but Handy crashes on my Arch setup. Never mind which version I run. Could be something with Wayland or Pipewire but didn't see anything obvious in the logs.

https://github.com/goodroot/hyprwhspr have you tried this? I have a nice 64GB new linux machine waiting to be set up for me to kick the tires on this

pretty sure it's awesome - sorry OP about mentioning another project, we're all learning here :)

Re: Show HN: Free alternative to Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, and Monologue

#112

Post by zuInnp » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 2:56 PM UTC

I am a huge fan of OpenSuperWhisper (https://github.com/Starmel/OpenSuperWhisper). Works local and is more than enough for me.

Re: Show HN: Free alternative to Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, and Monologue

#113

Post by b-star » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 3:03 PM UTC

yuppiepuppie wrote: post #82

Quick question, what’s the state of vibe coding with Xcode? I remember there were some issues months ago trying to get a seem less integration working. Has it improved?

I just vibe coded a small app in 2 hours (mostly due to making additional adjustments). Claude Code used Xcode CLI. No issues besides the fact that it’s not notarized and you have to trust it through Gatekeeper

Re: Show HN: Free alternative to Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, and Monologue

#114

Post by jiehong » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 3:27 PM UTC

p0w3n3d wrote: post #11

There's also an offline-running software called VoiceInk for macos. No need for groq or external AI. https://github.com/Beingpax/VoiceInk

I used to use VoiceInk, but I found Spokenly [0] to be easier to use for post-processing the output, and more stable overall (local version with Parakeet or whisper is free).

[0]: https://spokenly.app/

Re: Show HN: Free alternative to Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, and Monologue

#115

Post by arach » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 3:42 PM UTC

ghrl wrote: post #89

arach wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My M1 16GB Mini and M2 16GB Air both deliver insane local transcription performance without eating up much memory - I think the M line + Parakeet delivers insane local performance and you get privacy for free

Yeah, that model is amazing. It even runs reasonably well on my mid-range Android phone with this quite simple but very useful application, as long as you don't speak for too long or interrupt yourself for transcribing every once in a while. I do have handy.computer on my Mac too. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46640855 I find the model works surprisingly well and in my opinion surpasses all other models I've t…

Ack for dictations but Gemini voice is fun for interactive voice experiments -> https://hud.arach.dev/ honestly blown away by how much Gemini could assist with with basically no dev effort

Re: Show HN: Free alternative to Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, and Monologue

#116

Post by arach » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 3:43 PM UTC

Combine this with a nice shortcut keyboard and then you're really flying - my favorites are XP Pen and DOIO 16

Re: Show HN: Free alternative to Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, and Monologue

#117

Post by baseh » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 5:04 PM UTC

xnx wrote: post #31

spelk wrote: post #16

Does anyone know of an effective alternative for Android?

Does the Android keyboard transcription not work for your needs?

For Android I find Google GBoard transcription most accurate and pretty solid.

Re: Show HN: Free alternative to Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, and Monologue

#118

Post by james2doyle » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 5:13 PM UTC

d4rkp4ttern wrote: post #58

digitalbase wrote: post #14

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

Big fan of handy and it’s cross platform as well. Parakeet V3 gives the best experience with very fast and accurate-enough transcriptions when talking to AIs that can read between the lines. It does have stuttering issues though. My primary use of these is when talking to coding agents. But a few weeks ago someone on HN pointed me to Hex, which also supports Parakeet-V3 , and incredibly enough, is even faster than Ha…

I was having the same journey but landed on https://github.com/hoomanaskari/mac-dictate-anywhere

Re: Show HN: Free alternative to Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, and Monologue

#119

Post by james2doyle » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 5:14 PM UTC

p0w3n3d wrote: post #11

There's also an offline-running software called VoiceInk for macos. No need for groq or external AI. https://github.com/Beingpax/VoiceInk

Haven’t seen this one, but I settled on this offline-running one: https://github.com/hoomanaskari/mac-dictate-anywhere

Re: Show HN: Free alternative to Wispr Flow, Superwhisper, and Monologue

#120

Post by sahildeepreel » Tue, Feb 17, 2026, 5:54 PM UTC

p0w3n3d wrote: post #11

There's also an offline-running software called VoiceInk for macos. No need for groq or external AI. https://github.com/Beingpax/VoiceInk

came to recommend voiceink too: https://tryvoiceink.com/

just bought the one-time licence. this is the future of AI pricing - local models and one-time fee.