Voxor
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Download Five Mac dictation apps side by side: what each one is best for, where it processes your voice, what it costs, and where it runs. Then a plain way to pick.
| App | Best for | Processing | Price | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Dictation | Short bursts, at no cost, with nothing to install | On device or on Apple's servers, depending on your Mac and language | Free, built in | Mac, iPhone |
| Wispr Flow | Cloud dictation on Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android | Cloud | Free, metered. Pro $15/mo, or $12/mo billed annually | Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android |
| Superwhisper | Picking and tuning your own local models | On device, with local models | Free tier. Pro $8.49/mo | Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android |
| Vox | Free on-device dictation, at home or at work | On device, as Vox describes it | Free, including commercial use | Mac (Apple silicon, macOS 14+), Windows 10 and 11 (x64) |
| Voxor | On-device dictation on Mac and Windows that formats for the app you are in, with little to set up | Local mode (Mac and Windows): on device, on capable hardware. Cloud mode: in the cloud, see our privacy policy | Free, 2,000 words a week, cloud transcription. Pro $18/mo, or $15/mo billed annually | Mac (Apple silicon), Windows (x64), iPhone, Android (Google Play) |
How we sourced this table: each rival's price and platforms come from its own pages, with prices and Vox read on 19 October 2026 and platforms last verified between 3 September and 19 October 2026. Apple's behaviour comes from Apple's own support and privacy pages. We list only apps whose five cells we could source on that date, so some good tools are not in the table yet.
Best for: short bursts, zero cost, zero install. It is already on your Mac.
Credit where it is due: it is free, it is everywhere, and for a quick sentence into a search bar it is genuinely fine. The honest limits are the silence rule, thirty seconds with no speech detected and the session ends, which is exactly the pause a long thought needs, and no custom vocabulary, so names and jargon come out wrong. On the architecture question, which every other option on this page has to answer: Apple's own Siri and Dictation privacy disclosure, read at the source on 1 September 2026, says your device will indicate in Keyboard Settings if your audio and transcripts are processed on your device and not sent to Apple servers, and that otherwise the things you dictate are sent to and processed on the server. It turns on the device and the language, and Apple documents no rule about how long you speak. If the cutting-out is your specific pain, we wrote a whole post on why Mac dictation stops after 30 seconds.
Best for: cloud dictation on Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android, if server-side transcription is fine for you.
Wispr Flow is fast, well designed, and pleasant to use, and it is on all four major platforms. The honest tradeoff is architecture: your voice is sent to a server to be transcribed. For a lot of writing that is a perfectly reasonable deal. For sensitive work it is the thing to weigh. Its free tier is metered, and Pro is $15 a month, or $12 a month billed annually. If you are comparing on this axis, our Voxor vs Wispr Flow page draws the line fairly.
Best for: picking and tuning your own local models, if you do not mind some setup.
Superwhisper deserves real credit: it keeps your voice on the device, which is the right instinct and a genuine advantage over the cloud tools. It has also been closing the gap it was best known for. Its 2.18.0 release, dated 19 August 2026 on their changelog, added an on-device model that cleans up and formats dictated text without a network request, and Local Mode is now suggested automatically when your keyboard is set to English. Then on 26 August their 2.18.2 release made all local Whisper models free on macOS, so their local transcription now costs nothing. As of 19 October 2026 their AI cleanup is still a Pro feature, Pro is $8.49 a month, and their free tier now lists Meetings on Mac. The tradeoff that remains is the first run: models and modes are still yours to manage. If maximum privacy with patience for setup is your priority, it is a legitimate pick, and our Voxor vs Superwhisper comparison is a fair place to weigh it.
Best for: free on-device dictation, at home or at work.
Vox, at vox.rizenhq.com, describes itself as dictation that never leaves your device, on Mac and Windows. As of 19 October 2026 its homepage says it is free for personal and commercial use, with an optional donation, and it ships as releases on GitHub. It runs on Apple silicon Macs with macOS 14 or later, and on Windows 10 and 11 (x64). If free and on-device is the whole brief, it is a fair pick. One note, because the names are close: Vox is not Voxor. It is a separate product. Anything with a Vox-adjacent name that does not point to voxor.ai is not us.
Best for: on-device dictation that formats for the app you are in, with little to set up.
Last, and only because it earns the spot: Voxor is built to be local-first and to do the arranging for you. Which half of that is actually a difference depends on who you are comparing it to, so we will say it plainly rather than let one word cover both. Against the cloud tools it is the privacy: in Local mode, your voice stays on the machine. Against the local tools it is the setup: they hand you models and modes to manage. On formatting specifically, Wispr Flow also applies a writing style to the app you are in, so on that axis we are level; what differs is that ours runs on your machine. On Desktop, Local mode runs your voice, its transcription, and the formatting that matches where you are typing on your Mac. It gives you sixty seconds of silence before it stops rather than Apple's thirty, warns you first, and learns the words you use so names and jargon land right. The cleanup that turns raw speech into finished text runs on-device too, so privacy does not cost you polish. Local mode does download a model on the first run: a hardware scan picks the tier your machine can carry and fetches it once, and after that there is little to choose or tune. On very low-end machines, that scan declines Local mode rather than run it badly. In cloud mode, your audio is processed in the cloud; our privacy policy says what is sent and how it is handled.
Voxor runs on Mac with Apple silicon, on Windows (x64) and on iPhone, and Voxor for Android is public on Google Play.
On pricing, the model is plain: Free is metered at 2,000 words a week, with cloud transcription; Pro removes the meter for $15 a month billed annually, or $18 month to month, with no per-word charge once you pay; Teams is $15 a seat a month, billed annually, for two seats or more. No trickery, no metered surprise after you subscribe.
| If you want | Pick |
|---|---|
| Free and occasional, short bursts | Apple Dictation |
| Cloud dictation on every device, and server transcription is fine | Wispr Flow |
| Local models you configure yourself | Superwhisper |
| Free and on-device, at home or at work | Vox |
| On-device, formatted for each app, with little to research or tune | Voxor |
If Apple's free tool covers you, use it. If raw speed is everything and the cloud is fine for your work, the cloud tools are excellent at it. We would rather send you to the right tool than win a click and lose your trust.
There is no single best dictation app for Mac, only the best one for how you work. The native tool is free and limited. The cloud tools are fast and send your voice away. The local tools are private and, Vox aside, cost you either money or setup. Voxor's bet is that you should not have to choose between private and effortless, so it aims to be both. Weigh it on that claim, not on our say-so.
Want private without the arranging? See it on your Mac.
Try Voxor on your MacVoxor Desktop needs a Mac with Apple Silicon. Free to start, metered at 2,000 words a week.
It depends on how you work. Apple Dictation is free and fine for short bursts. Wispr Flow is cloud dictation on Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android. Superwhisper runs local models you choose and tune. Vox is free on-device dictation for home and work. Voxor runs on-device in Local mode and formats for the app you are in, with little to set up.
Yes. Apple Dictation is free and built into every Mac, good for short bursts, though Apple documents that it stops when no speech is detected for 30 seconds, and it has no custom vocabulary. Vox is free for personal and commercial use on Apple silicon Macs. Superwhisper and Voxor have free tiers; Voxor's is 2,000 words a week with cloud transcription.
Superwhisper runs local models on your Mac, and Vox describes itself as on-device. Voxor does in Local mode, on capable hardware. Apple Dictation processes on the device for some Macs and languages and on Apple's servers otherwise. Wispr Flow processes in the cloud.
Look for a tool that transcribes on the device rather than on a server. The dedicated local tools qualify, though Superwhisper asks for more configuration. Voxor's Local mode on Desktop runs your voice, its transcription, and the formatting on your Mac.