Whispering
Shares rank 23 of 26 dictation apps by recommenders
Free open-source speech-to-text app that people find accurate and reliable for dictation, with a clean interface.
Free open-source speech-to-text app that people find accurate and reliable for dictation, with a clean interface.
6 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 83%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 4 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, 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
Reliable, accurate transcription
“The UX is very clean and whatever I say it transcribes it correctly.”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?” “It's incredibly cheap and works reliably for me.”
Comment from 13 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?” “work incredibly well for set-and-forget STT”
Comment from 2 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Moonshine Open-Weights STT models – higher accuracy than WhisperLargev3”
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 |
| macOS Dictation | 26 | 44 | 37% | 10 | — | — |
| WhisperingThis page | 5 | 1 | 83% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
6 of the 7 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“work incredibly well for set-and-forget STT”
“has gotten a lot better on Windows despite being extremely rough around the edges at first”
“it really wasn't working well on my Ubuntu computer”
“The UX is very clean and whatever I say it transcribes it correctly.”
“It's a huge productivity boost”
“It's incredibly cheap and works reliably for me.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.