Alternatives to Buzz

Turn speech recordings into text with a desktop transcription app. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.

Replacements

Listings that take over the same core job as Buzz.

  • Vibe

    Transcribe audio and video files on your own computer.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinux

    Vibe is an MIT licensed desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux that adds batch jobs for audio and video files and optional cloud summarization.

  • Whisper

    An open-source speech recognition model from OpenAI for transcribing and translating audio on your own machine.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinuxCommand line

    Whisper is the underlying OpenAI speech model, offering transcription and translation to English through command-line and Python setup instead of a desktop interface.

  • noScribe

    Transcribes recorded audio to text on your own computer, with speaker separation.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinux

    noScribe is a GPL-3.0 desktop transcriber that adds speaker separation for recordings, and it is slow without a capable GPU.

  • aTrain

    Transcribe recorded interviews on your own computer.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsLinux

    aTrain is an AGPL-3.0 interview transcriber with speaker detection, available on Windows and Linux but not macOS.

  • whisper.cpp

    C/C++ port of OpenAI's Whisper for fast offline speech-to-text on your own hardware.

    FreeOpen sourceWindowsmacOSLinuxCommand line

    whisper.cpp gives fast offline speech-to-text without Python on CPU or GPU, but it is mainly command-line with models downloaded separately.

  • Meetily

    Record and transcribe meetings with local AI processing.

    FreemiumOpen sourceWindowsmacOS

    Meetily focuses on recording and transcribing meetings with local summaries, runs on Windows and macOS, and keeps some exports and team features in a paid Pro edition.

Also worth comparing

These listings name Buzz as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.

  • MacWhisper

    A Mac app that transcribes audio and video files to text on your own machine.

    FreemiumProprietarymacOS

    Buzz is a free MIT desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux that adds microphone transcription and subtitle exports.

  • WhisperX

    A speech recognition tool that adds word-level timestamps and speaker diarization to Whisper transcription.

    FreeProprietaryCommand line

    Buzz is an MIT desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux with microphone transcription and subtitle exports, without a terminal.

Similar software

Related functionality, not a direct replacement.