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A free offline alternative to Wispr Flow, Dragon and Handy.

The programs people compare us with most often, in one table. Honest, including where we lose. Prices and features are what each maker publishes.

Updated 9 September 2026 · Vitalii Yemets

	HoldToType	Handy	Wispr Flow	Dragon	Whisper Flow	DictaFlow	Typeless
Code-signed builds	Not yet i	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Price	Free	Free	$12 / month	$699 once	From $9 / month	$7 / month	$12 / month
Subscription or credits	None	None	Subscription	One-time licence	Credits	Subscription	Subscription
Account	None	None	Required	Required	Required	Required	Required
Audio leaves your computer	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Works offline	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Paid option	No
Open source	MIT	MIT	No	No	No	No	No
Languages	99	99	100+	7	100+	90+	100+
Live text while speaking	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes
Translation	7 languages	No	No	No	No	No	Yes
Editing by a local model	Yes	No	Cloud	No	Cloud	Cloud	Cloud
Choice of speech model	9 models, one per language	Whisper sizes and Parakeet	No, theirs	No, theirs	No, theirs	No, theirs	No, theirs
Your own speech models	Any Whisper GGML file or sherpa-onnx model put in the models folder	—	No	No	No	No	No
Models that show text while you speak	Nemotron 3.5	No	No	Its own engine	No	No	Its own engine
Post-processing by a model	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Where post-processing runs	On your disk, or a server you choose	—	Their cloud	—	Their cloud	Their cloud	Their cloud
Choice of editor model	Any GGUF from Hugging Face, or any API	No	No	No	No	No	No
Your own prompts	Yes, chains, each with a shortcut	No	Built-in styles	No	—	—	Built-in edits
Recognition server on another computer	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Voice commands you define	Yes	No	Built-in only	Yes	—	—	Built-in only
Where dictation history is kept	On your disk, off by default	On your disk	Their servers	—	Their servers	Their servers	Their servers, on-device option
Interface languages	8	—	English	Several	—	—	—
Custom vocabulary	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Portable folder	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No

Prices and features as published by each maker in September 2026. A dash means the maker does not say.

Where we lose

No Mac and no phone. The builds are not code-signed yet, so Windows warns once. There is no cloud sync between your computers: settings and history live in the folder, and you copy them yourself.

Where it is a draw

Accuracy on everyday speech is close across the board: the same open models sit under most of these programs. Custom vocabulary is common. The paid ones ship a polished onboarding that a one-person project cannot match.

Where we win

Nothing to pay and nothing to sign up for. The audio never leaves the computer. The source is open under MIT. A model per language, live text while you speak, translation into seven languages, an editor model that runs on your disk, and a portable folder you can carry on a stick.

Detailed comparisons

One page per program: who each one is for, where each is better, and how to move.

Not in the table

Windows voice typing, the built-in Win+H tool, is free and needs no install, but for most languages it sends the audio to Microsoft and it has no dictionary of your own words. Mac-only programs such as VoiceInk, FluidVoice or HoldType, the one with the similar name, are left out because HoldToType is for Windows. Vibe and other file transcribers do a different job: they transcribe recordings, not what you say at the cursor.

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