Dicta vs MacWhisper

The short version

MacWhisper is primarily a file-transcription tool, batch processing, speaker recognition, subtitle export, with a system-wide dictation mode included. Its local Whisper and Parakeet models mean transcription itself is genuinely on-device. Its AI grammar cleanup and other post-processing, though, can run through cloud providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini) as well as a local Ollama installation, so the local-only guarantee is a setting to choose, not something built into the architecture. Dicta is dictation-first: a hotkey, system-wide, with speech recognition and the AI rewrite step always on-device, no cloud option to configure or accidentally leave on.

Fact table

	Dicta	MacWhisper
Primary use case	System-wide, hotkey-driven dictation	File-transcription workhorse, with a dictation mode
Speech-to-text	On-device (Parakeet/Whisper)	On-device (Whisper and Parakeet models)
AI rewrite / grammar cleanup	Always on-device, no cloud option	Cloud providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini) or local Ollama
Platforms	macOS today; Windows and iOS on the roadmap	macOS only
Usage limits	None, on any tier	Free version is feature-limited; full features need the paid version

Sources

Feature details for MacWhisper are drawn from macwhisper.com as published at the time this page was written, and are re-checked when we update this comparison. If something above is out of date, tell us at [email protected] and we’ll fix it.

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