{"slug": "fluidvoice", "name": "FluidVoice", "category": "ai", "category_name": "AI models and assistants", "description": "Local speech-to-text dictation app for macOS that runs voice models on-device.", "recommenders": 5, "commenters": 5, "warners": 0, "score": 4.796, "rising": 2.35, "first": "2026-07-07", "latest": "2026-10-11", "why": "Liked for fully local voice transcription that is fast and handles tech jargon well, with a better UI and fuller feature set than Handy.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 0, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 1], "listed": true, "loved": ["Local models", "Accuracy"], "caveat": "Quirks", "short_quote": "I recently switched from Handy to Fluidvoice, and like it much better. The UI is much better and offers a better and more comprehensive feature set", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/altic-dev/fluidvoice", "official_url": "https://github.com/altic-dev/fluidvoice", "pricing": "unknown", "aliases": ["FluidVoice", "Fluidvoice"], "verdict": [{"text": "Liked for fully local voice transcription that is fast and handles tech jargon well,", "cites": [{"id": 782980929, "item_id": 48936308, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48936308", "by": "brothaakhee", "date": "2026-07-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "its a 100% local voice model that works really well and really fast. (I uninstalled wispr after using fluid)", "excerpt": "Hey HN, So as I'm pair-programming (vibe coding?) with Claude all day, usually with a browser open next to the terminal, every time I spotted a UI bug the routine was the same: screenshot \u2192 save \u2192 alt-tab to the terminal \u2192 drag the file in \u2192 type what's wrong \u2192 enter. Five steps across two windows, dozens of times a day, many times in quick succession. I am lazy, and so I built this tool that streamlines this for me.", "context": "", "use_case": "local voice-to-text", "switched_from": "Wispr", "story": "SnippAI \u2013 Screenshot, speak, straight into your Claude Code session"}, {"id": 781186611, "item_id": 48824163, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48824163", "by": "janpmz", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use it with FluidVoice", "excerpt": "Both Text-to-Speech and Speech-to-Text now have local models that are good enough to get the job done. Kokoro for TTS, Parakeet for STT and Fluid-1 for text formatting (I use it with FluidVoice). I hope this is a trend that continues for other applications.", "context": "", "use_case": "local dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Local, CPU-Friendly, High-Quality TTS (Text-to-Speech) with Kokoro"}, {"id": 796988016, "item_id": 49811751, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49811751", "by": "zenapollo", "date": "2026-09-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "works a bit better on tech jargon than vanilla parakeet", "excerpt": "Not sure if finetune is the right word here, but their default local model seems to be an in-house fork of parakeet (?, maybe whisper) that works a bit better on tech jargon than vanilla parakeet i use in handy. Though has a few other quirks. Take with a grain of salt as I\u2019m a low volume user, but it\u2019s been enjoyable to test. I kept my wife on handy while i test this one.", "context": "low volume user", "use_case": "local voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Anyone using a Wispr Flow alternative that is non-cloud?"}]}, {"text": " with a better UI and fuller feature set than Handy.", "cites": [{"id": 800741008, "item_id": 50046313, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50046313", "by": "evulhotdog", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recently switched from Handy to Fluidvoice, and like it much better. The UI is much better and offers a better and more comprehensive feature set", "excerpt": "I recently switched from Handy to Fluidvoice, and like it much better. The UI is much better and offers a better and more comprehensive feature set in comparison.", "context": "", "use_case": "dictation", "switched_from": "Handy", "story": "Show HN: BetterWispr \u2013 Free, open-source dictation for Mac"}]}, {"text": " The only caveat raised is a few unspecified quirks, noted by a self-described low-volume user.", "cites": [{"id": 796988016, "item_id": 49811751, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49811751", "by": "zenapollo", "date": "2026-09-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "works a bit better on tech jargon than vanilla parakeet", "excerpt": "Not sure if finetune is the right word here, but their default local model seems to be an in-house fork of parakeet (?, maybe whisper) that works a bit better on tech jargon than vanilla parakeet i use in handy. Though has a few other quirks. Take with a grain of salt as I\u2019m a low volume user, but it\u2019s been enjoyable to test. I kept my wife on handy while i test this one.", "context": "low volume user", "use_case": "local voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Anyone using a Wispr Flow alternative that is non-cloud?"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Local models", "summary": "Runs speech-to-text on local models, with no cloud service needed.", "quotes": [{"id": 782980929, "item_id": 48936308, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48936308", "by": "brothaakhee", "date": "2026-07-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "its a 100% local voice model that works really well and really fast. (I uninstalled wispr after using fluid)", "excerpt": "Hey HN, So as I'm pair-programming (vibe coding?) with Claude all day, usually with a browser open next to the terminal, every time I spotted a UI bug the routine was the same: screenshot \u2192 save \u2192 alt-tab to the terminal \u2192 drag the file in \u2192 type what's wrong \u2192 enter. Five steps across two windows, dozens of times a day, many times in quick succession. I am lazy, and so I built this tool that streamlines this for me.", "context": "", "use_case": "local voice-to-text", "switched_from": "Wispr", "story": "SnippAI \u2013 Screenshot, speak, straight into your Claude Code session"}, {"id": 781186611, "item_id": 48824163, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48824163", "by": "janpmz", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use it with FluidVoice", "excerpt": "Both Text-to-Speech and Speech-to-Text now have local models that are good enough to get the job done. Kokoro for TTS, Parakeet for STT and Fluid-1 for text formatting (I use it with FluidVoice). I hope this is a trend that continues for other applications.", "context": "", "use_case": "local dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Local, CPU-Friendly, High-Quality TTS (Text-to-Speech) with Kokoro"}, {"id": 796988016, "item_id": 49811751, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49811751", "by": "zenapollo", "date": "2026-09-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "works a bit better on tech jargon than vanilla parakeet", "excerpt": "Not sure if finetune is the right word here, but their default local model seems to be an in-house fork of parakeet (?, maybe whisper) that works a bit better on tech jargon than vanilla parakeet i use in handy. Though has a few other quirks. Take with a grain of salt as I\u2019m a low volume user, but it\u2019s been enjoyable to test. I kept my wife on handy while i test this one.", "context": "low volume user", "use_case": "local voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Anyone using a Wispr Flow alternative that is non-cloud?"}]}, {"label": "Accuracy", "summary": "Transcribes well, including tech jargon, which it handles better than vanilla Parakeet.", "quotes": [{"id": 796988016, "item_id": 49811751, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49811751", "by": "zenapollo", "date": "2026-09-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "works a bit better on tech jargon than vanilla parakeet", "excerpt": "Not sure if finetune is the right word here, but their default local model seems to be an in-house fork of parakeet (?, maybe whisper) that works a bit better on tech jargon than vanilla parakeet i use in handy. Though has a few other quirks. Take with a grain of salt as I\u2019m a low volume user, but it\u2019s been enjoyable to test. I kept my wife on handy while i test this one.", "context": "low volume user", "use_case": "local voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Anyone using a Wispr Flow alternative that is non-cloud?"}, {"id": 782980929, "item_id": 48936308, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48936308", "by": "brothaakhee", "date": "2026-07-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "its a 100% local voice model that works really well and really fast. (I uninstalled wispr after using fluid)", "excerpt": "Hey HN, So as I'm pair-programming (vibe coding?) with Claude all day, usually with a browser open next to the terminal, every time I spotted a UI bug the routine was the same: screenshot \u2192 save \u2192 alt-tab to the terminal \u2192 drag the file in \u2192 type what's wrong \u2192 enter. Five steps across two windows, dozens of times a day, many times in quick succession. I am lazy, and so I built this tool that streamlines this for me.", "context": "", "use_case": "local voice-to-text", "switched_from": "Wispr", "story": "SnippAI \u2013 Screenshot, speak, straight into your Claude Code session"}]}, {"label": "UI and features", "summary": "Has a better UI and a more comprehensive feature set than Handy.", "quotes": [{"id": 800741008, "item_id": 50046313, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50046313", "by": "evulhotdog", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recently switched from Handy to Fluidvoice, and like it much better. The UI is much better and offers a better and more comprehensive feature set", "excerpt": "I recently switched from Handy to Fluidvoice, and like it much better. The UI is much better and offers a better and more comprehensive feature set in comparison.", "context": "", "use_case": "dictation", "switched_from": "Handy", "story": "Show HN: BetterWispr \u2013 Free, open-source dictation for Mac"}]}, {"label": "Speed", "summary": "Its local voice model is described as really fast.", "quotes": [{"id": 782980929, "item_id": 48936308, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48936308", "by": "brothaakhee", "date": "2026-07-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "its a 100% local voice model that works really well and really fast. (I uninstalled wispr after using fluid)", "excerpt": "Hey HN, So as I'm pair-programming (vibe coding?) with Claude all day, usually with a browser open next to the terminal, every time I spotted a UI bug the routine was the same: screenshot \u2192 save \u2192 alt-tab to the terminal \u2192 drag the file in \u2192 type what's wrong \u2192 enter. Five steps across two windows, dozens of times a day, many times in quick succession. I am lazy, and so I built this tool that streamlines this for me.", "context": "", "use_case": "local voice-to-text", "switched_from": "Wispr", "story": "SnippAI \u2013 Screenshot, speak, straight into your Claude Code session"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Quirks", "summary": "One tester mentions a few unspecified quirks and notes they are a low-volume user.", "quotes": [{"id": 796988016, "item_id": 49811751, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49811751", "by": "zenapollo", "date": "2026-09-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "works a bit better on tech jargon than vanilla parakeet", "excerpt": "Not sure if finetune is the right word here, but their default local model seems to be an in-house fork of parakeet (?, maybe whisper) that works a bit better on tech jargon than vanilla parakeet i use in handy. Though has a few other quirks. Take with a grain of salt as I\u2019m a low volume user, but it\u2019s been enjoyable to test. I kept my wife on handy while i test this one.", "context": "low volume user", "use_case": "local voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Anyone using a Wispr Flow alternative that is non-cloud?"}]}], "who": [{"by": "zenapollo", "context": "low volume user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49811751", "date": "2026-09-23"}, {"by": "shelled", "context": "used dictation on a 2021 M1 Pro Mac", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49637497", "date": "2026-09-10"}], "tags": ["offline / local-only", "for tech jargon", "for Mac users", "for AI coding workflows", "Handy alternative"], "use_cases": ["dictation", "local voice dictation", "offline dictation", "local voice-to-text", "local dictation"], "compared": [{"slug": "handy", "name": "Handy", "co": 2, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "parakeet", "name": "Parakeet", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50042333", "title": "Show HN: BetterWispr \u2013 Free, open-source dictation for Mac", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49809670", "title": "Anyone using a Wispr Flow alternative that is non-cloud?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49624823", "title": "Desert Ant Labs: local, fast models that run on device", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48936307", "title": "SnippAI \u2013 Screenshot, speak, straight into your Claude Code session", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48821576", "title": "Local, CPU-Friendly, High-Quality TTS (Text-to-Speech) with Kokoro", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 800741008, "item_id": 50046313, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50046313", "by": "evulhotdog", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recently switched from Handy to Fluidvoice, and like it much better. The UI is much better and offers a better and more comprehensive feature set", "excerpt": "I recently switched from Handy to Fluidvoice, and like it much better. The UI is much better and offers a better and more comprehensive feature set in comparison.", "context": "", "use_case": "dictation", "switched_from": "Handy", "story": "Show HN: BetterWispr \u2013 Free, open-source dictation for Mac"}, {"id": 796988016, "item_id": 49811751, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49811751", "by": "zenapollo", "date": "2026-09-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "works a bit better on tech jargon than vanilla parakeet", "excerpt": "Not sure if finetune is the right word here, but their default local model seems to be an in-house fork of parakeet (?, maybe whisper) that works a bit better on tech jargon than vanilla parakeet i use in handy. Though has a few other quirks. Take with a grain of salt as I\u2019m a low volume user, but it\u2019s been enjoyable to test. I kept my wife on handy while i test this one.", "context": "low volume user", "use_case": "local voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Anyone using a Wispr Flow alternative that is non-cloud?"}, {"id": 794199952, "item_id": 49637497, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49637497", "by": "shelled", "date": "2026-09-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "this one's a great app", "excerpt": "I recently had to use dictation for a few weeks and I was pleasantly surprised that many of the apps (in use/vogue) did support models on my 2021 16GB M1 Pro mac (many of those even supported connecting to a remote or local model endpoint) and at the same time for any worthwhile STT enhancement the model size was hitting higher I would have comfortably wanted. Even though I don't necessarily need dictation any more I", "context": "used dictation on a 2021 M1 Pro Mac", "use_case": "offline dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Desert Ant Labs: local, fast models that run on device"}, {"id": 782980929, "item_id": 48936308, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48936308", "by": "brothaakhee", "date": "2026-07-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "its a 100% local voice model that works really well and really fast. (I uninstalled wispr after using fluid)", "excerpt": "Hey HN, So as I'm pair-programming (vibe coding?) with Claude all day, usually with a browser open next to the terminal, every time I spotted a UI bug the routine was the same: screenshot \u2192 save \u2192 alt-tab to the terminal \u2192 drag the file in \u2192 type what's wrong \u2192 enter. Five steps across two windows, dozens of times a day, many times in quick succession. I am lazy, and so I built this tool that streamlines this for me.", "context": "", "use_case": "local voice-to-text", "switched_from": "Wispr", "story": "SnippAI \u2013 Screenshot, speak, straight into your Claude Code session"}, {"id": 781186611, "item_id": 48824163, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48824163", "by": "janpmz", "date": "2026-07-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use it with FluidVoice", "excerpt": "Both Text-to-Speech and Speech-to-Text now have local models that are good enough to get the job done. Kokoro for TTS, Parakeet for STT and Fluid-1 for text formatting (I use it with FluidVoice). I hope this is a trend that continues for other applications.", "context": "", "use_case": "local dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Local, CPU-Friendly, High-Quality TTS (Text-to-Speech) with Kokoro"}]}