1. Captylo
Our productCaptylo is a Mac app that puts privacy first. Speech recognition runs on your Mac, offline too, and your history with recordings, your meetings and your notes stay in a local database on your disk. In the Free plan nothing leaves your computer until you turn on the cloud yourself. There is no telemetry, and you do not even need an account.
One app gives you dictation into any program, meeting notes without a bot and voice notes, Polish first, with English and 23 other European languages. Free has no word limit; with your own API key it also gives you the cloud and AI modes for dictation and AI in notes. Pro costs $84 a year (about $7 a month) or $9 a month and adds the cloud with no keys plus the meeting AI: notes with decisions and tasks, questions across all meetings and citations that play the recording. The Pro server streams the data and stores none of the content. The app is open source (GPLv3).
Key features
- Speech recognition on your Mac, works offline
- A local database: history, recordings, meetings and notes on your disk
- No account and no telemetry in the Free plan
- Dictation into any Mac app with one hotkey
- AI modes: cleanup, email, to-do list, English and your own
- Meeting recording without a bot, a live transcript on your Mac
- AI meeting notes and questions across all meetings (Pro)
- Voice notes: a hotkey, dictating into a note, audio import
- Search across meetings and notes
- A local MCP server for your AI assistant
- Pricing:
- Free with no word limit and no account, forever. Pro $84 a year or $9 a month, 7 days of Pro free for a new account, no card.
- Best for:
- people who care about privacy: they write a lot, have meetings and want their recordings and notes to stay on their Mac.
Why it is number 1 here
- It recognises speech on your Mac, offline too. Aqua Voice does it in the cloud, with no offline mode on the Mac.
- Privacy is not something you have to switch on: your history with recordings, your meetings and your notes sit in a local database on your disk. In Aqua, Privacy Mode is off by default, so transcripts may be stored on its servers.
- In Free nothing leaves your Mac until you turn on the cloud yourself. There is no telemetry, and the Pro server stores none of the content.
- No account and no word limit in Free, instead of a required account and 1,000 words in total.
- More than dictation: meeting recording without a bot with a live transcript, voice notes, and in Pro AI meeting notes and questions across all your meetings.
- Your own API key in Free: the cloud and AI modes for dictation, and AI in notes.
- Polish is its first language, with English and 23 other European languages. Pro costs $84 a year instead of $96, and the app is open source (GPLv3).