Ghost Pepper
Shares rank 4 of 26 dictation apps by recommenders
Free, open-source, fully local hold-to-talk dictation for Mac, with a corrections feature that handles jargon well. Critics mainly note it is Mac-only.
Free, open-source, fully local hold-to-talk dictation for Mac, with a corrections feature that handles jargon well. Critics mainly note it is Mac-only.
31 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 26
- criticize it
- 5
- approval share
- 84%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 26 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Fully local, on-device processing
“its like superwhisrp but oss/free and local”
Comment from 2 Jun 2026 in “Apple rejected my dictation app for using the accessibility API” “nice work on keeping it all on device”
Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Ghost Pepper – 100% local hold-to-talk speech-to-text for macOS” “nice to see this running fully local”
Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Ghost Pepper – 100% local hold-to-talk speech-to-text for macOS” Accurate with technical jargon
“the "corrections" feature works well for most of the jargon and misspelling use cases”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Ghost Pepper – 100% local hold-to-talk speech-to-text for macOS” “Way more accurate, especially with technical jargon.”
Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Ghost Pepper – 100% local hold-to-talk speech-to-text for macOS” Fits into existing workflows
“I really like the project and am eager to try and fit this into some of my workflows.”
Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Ghost Pepper – 100% local hold-to-talk speech-to-text for macOS” “This is ideal for my use case, yeah. No need to fiddle around with another app's UI.”
Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Ghost Pepper – 100% local hold-to-talk speech-to-text for macOS” Customizable to your own needs
“you can actually create a skill.md with the features you need to build your own”
Comment from 7 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Ghost Pepper – 100% local hold-to-talk speech-to-text for macOS” “But I did it because I wanted it to work exactly the way I wanted it.”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Ghost Pepper – 100% local hold-to-talk speech-to-text for macOS”
Other dictation apps people recommend
The four most recommended other dictation apps, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Handy | 150 | 20 | 88% | 12 | 1 mo5 owners | Approved |
| Wispr Flow | 52 | 33 | 61% | 12 | — | — |
| MacWhisper | 31 | 9 | 78% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Ghost PepperThis page | 26 | 5 | 84% | 3 | — | — |
| macOS Dictation | 26 | 44 | 37% | 10 | — | — |
What people said
24 of the 31 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the excellent Ghost Pepper”
“I do really want speaker recognition which it does have but I haven't been able to get it working.”
“I really like this one. I dictated this one just now with ghost pepper.”
“its like superwhisrp but oss/free and local”
“Wish they would do an ios version, but the creator already kind of dismissed it.”
“in my tests it's just a little bit slower than other solutions”
“I really like the project and am eager to try and fit this into some of my workflows.”
“However, the built in model isn't as good, so this is probably better.”
“instead of transcribing exactly what I said it outputs nonsense”
“nice to see this running fully local”
“Way more accurate, especially with technical jargon.”
“Didn’t even bother to try to use the thing before posting it everywhere.”
“nice work on keeping it all on device”
“you can actually create a skill.md with the features you need to build your own”
“This is ideal for my use case, yeah. No need to fiddle around with another app's UI.”
“The clean up prompt needs adjusting.”
“This is great, and I'm not knocking it, but every time I see these apps it reminds me of my phone.”
“But I did it because I wanted it to work exactly the way I wanted it.”
“It works well with anything.”
“always mac. when windows? why can you just make things multios”
“chunking on silence would sidestep the latency issue pretty cleanly”
“the "corrections" feature works well for most of the jargon and misspelling use cases”
“Sadly the app doesn't work. There is no popup asking for microphone permission.”
“Now it looks like I don't have to!”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.