# Whispering

5 Hacker News commenters recommended Whispering and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 4 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free open-source speech-to-text app that people find accurate and reliable for dictation, with a clean interface.

## Why people recommend it

- Reliable, accurate transcription (3 comments): "The UX is very clean and whatever I say it transcribes it correctly." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46258850)) "It's incredibly cheap and works reliably for me." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46256343)) "work incredibly well for set-and-forget STT" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47217138))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Handy](https://hackerapproved.com/p/handy.md): 150 recommend
- [Wispr Flow](https://hackerapproved.com/p/wispr-flow.md): 52 recommend
- [MacWhisper](https://hackerapproved.com/p/macwhisper.md): 31 recommend
- [macOS Dictation](https://hackerapproved.com/p/macos-built-in-dictation.md): 26 recommend
- [Hex voice-to-text app for macOS](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hex.md): 26 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Whispering", https://hackerapproved.com/p/whispering/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).