{"slug": "handy", "name": "Handy", "category": "ai", "category_name": "AI models and assistants", "description": "Free, open-source desktop speech-to-text app that runs dictation models locally.", "recommenders": 44, "commenters": 54, "warners": 2, "score": 38.623, "rising": -1.45, "first": "2025-11-13", "latest": "2026-10-14", "why": "Recommended as a free, open-source, cross-platform dictation app that runs speech-to-text locally, often paired with Parakeet models for fast, reliable voice input into coding agents like Claude Code.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 48, "neutral": 9, "compare": 2, "warn": 2}, "spark": [2, 1, 8, 8, 1, 2, 1, 3, 12, 2, 2, 6], "listed": true, "loved": ["Free and open source", "Parakeet support"], "caveat": "Accuracy limits", "short_quote": "Handy is at least as good, and it's not an expensive subscription. I love that it runs locally, too. Strongly recommend!", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/cjpais/handy", "official_url": "https://handy.computer/", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["Handy"], "verdict": [{"text": "Recommended as a free, open-source, cross-platform dictation app that runs speech-to-text locally", "cites": [{"id": 782894720, "item_id": 48930920, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48930920", "by": "peaxkl", "date": "2026-07-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Very similar to handy [1], which is free, open source [2] and available on Windows, MacOS and Linux.", "excerpt": "Very similar to handy [1], which is free, open source [2] and available on Windows, MacOS and Linux. [1] https://handy.computer/ [2] https://github.com/cjpais/Handy", "context": "", "use_case": "speech-to-text dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Open Source, Free Tier Capable Whispr Using Cloudflare AI"}, {"id": 734786528, "item_id": 45924158, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45924158", "by": "odie5533", "date": "2025-11-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use the app constantly, all day long.", "excerpt": "Handy https://handy.computer/ is a free and open source voice transcription app. Works on macOS, Linux, and Windows, and you can pick which model. Everything runs locally. There is no API. I use the app constantly, all day long.", "context": "", "use_case": "local voice transcription", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why do voice transcription apps charge monthly when Whisper runs locally?"}, {"id": 800180480, "item_id": 50011280, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50011280", "by": "contingencies", "date": "2026-10-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I currently use https://handy.computer/ as it's cross platform and open source.", "excerpt": "For speech to text UX I currently use https://handy.computer/ as it's cross platform and open source. With that I am currently using Parakeet Unified EN 0.6B and finding it excellent. Often I use it to talk to AIs without giving them audio, which works very well. Honestly, I would never go back to typing now. Promised since ~Y2K, the tech is finally here. You really notice it when you wake up at 2AM and don't want to", "context": "fears RSI", "use_case": "speech-to-text dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Whistle: Speech to Text in 16.9 MB"}]}, {"text": ", often paired with Parakeet models for fast, reliable voice input into coding agents like Claude Code.", "cites": [{"id": 782364177, "item_id": 48897761, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48897761", "by": "dinfinity", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Parakeet V3 via this tool and it is actually quite reliable for me (in English)", "excerpt": "I use Parakeet V3 via this tool and it is actually quite reliable for me (in English): https://github.com/cjpais/Handy", "context": "", "use_case": "speech transcription", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple's new SpeechAnalyzer API, benchmarked against Whisper and its predecessor"}, {"id": 749276640, "item_id": 46829790, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46829790", "by": "raajg", "date": "2026-01-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "just tried Handy and it's SO FREAKING FAST! Love it.", "excerpt": "I've been dabbling with STT quite a bit and built my own tool using Deepgram. But just tried Handy and it's SO FREAKING FAST! Love it.", "context": "built own STT tool", "use_case": "speech to text", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's the current best local/open speech-to-speech setup?"}, {"id": 740110336, "item_id": 46256896, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46256896", "by": "rgbrgb", "date": "2025-12-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Handy with Claude code. Nice to just have a key combo to transcribe into whatever has focus.", "excerpt": "I use Handy with Claude code. Nice to just have a key combo to transcribe into whatever has focus. https://github.com/cjpais/Handy", "context": "", "use_case": "voice transcription", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?"}]}, {"text": " The most common complaint is transcription errors, especially with accents and brand or person names", "cites": [{"id": 800835792, "item_id": 50052237, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50052237", "by": "kartik017", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the reason it is bad, it's a 150-200mb binary i remembered downloading, it was not accurate for my accent", "excerpt": "i used handy a year ago, i think it was my first voice dictation app trial. the reason it is bad, it's a 150-200mb binary i remembered downloading, it was not accurate for my accent, was missing lot of words, i tried wisprflow and it was accurate, the dx was top notch and i was a annual plan subscriber, but i think they are cost cutting on inference and all of the features which i mentioned got severely degraded. thi", "context": "", "use_case": "voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: BetterWispr \u2013 Free, open-source dictation for Mac"}, {"id": 790920656, "item_id": 49432541, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49432541", "by": "vekker", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Can confirm this is a really excellent piece of OSS for local STT, I use it in both English and Dutch.", "excerpt": "Can confirm this is a really excellent piece of OSS for local STT, I use it in both English and Dutch. The only thing it has trouble with are brand/product/tooling/person names. You can add custom vocabulary, but then it tends to over-correct and insert those custom words when I never said them. However this isn't unique to local STT, frontier cloud models also struggle with this.", "context": "", "use_case": "local speech-to-text", "switched_from": "", "story": "I built a low-latency AI companion that plays Skyrim with me"}]}, {"text": ", and a few report stuttering, trouble on Fedora, or a slow default text-input mode.", "cites": [{"id": 783497234, "item_id": 48968577, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48968577", "by": "d4rkp4ttern", "date": "2026-07-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used to use Handy but as of a few months ago it had stuttering and other issues so I switched to Hex.", "excerpt": "I use the Hex[1] app on MacOs for near instant transcription with Parakeet V3. This is how I speak to Code agents at least 80% of the time. The idea is - I tend to be lazy if I need to type lots of details, so speaking lets me get into details that I otherwise wouldn\u2019t and this helps give more useful context to the agent. This often tends to be an unstructured brain dump so I sometimes ask the agent to repeat back wh", "context": "", "use_case": "voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Speech Recognition and TTS in less than 500kb"}, {"id": 801431952, "item_id": 50089497, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50089497", "by": "dr_kiszonka", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Handy worked fine for me on Windows, but on Fedora, I can't get it to work at all.", "excerpt": "Nice. I will give it a try too. Thanks! Handy worked fine for me on Windows, but on Fedora, I can't get it to work at all.", "context": "Windows and Fedora user", "use_case": "dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Sayso, free open source dictation for Mac, Windows, and Linux"}, {"id": 800200704, "item_id": 50012544, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50012544", "by": "apitman", "date": "2026-10-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Love Handy. It has become a core piece of how I use computers.", "excerpt": "Love Handy. It has become a core piece of how I use computers. In case it's helpful to anyone else using it, at first it felt a bit slow to me, because there was a noticeable pause after I finished a message before it would quickly type it all out. I changed the input method from direct to clipboard and it's way faster now, almost instantaneous.", "context": "", "use_case": "speech-to-text dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Whistle: Speech to Text in 16.9 MB"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Free and open source", "summary": "Commenters repeatedly point out that it is free, open source, and modifiable, with no subscription.", "quotes": [{"id": 782894720, "item_id": 48930920, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48930920", "by": "peaxkl", "date": "2026-07-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Very similar to handy [1], which is free, open source [2] and available on Windows, MacOS and Linux.", "excerpt": "Very similar to handy [1], which is free, open source [2] and available on Windows, MacOS and Linux. [1] https://handy.computer/ [2] https://github.com/cjpais/Handy", "context": "", "use_case": "speech-to-text dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Open Source, Free Tier Capable Whispr Using Cloudflare AI"}, {"id": 746162752, "item_id": 46635172, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46635172", "by": "peterldowns", "date": "2026-01-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Handy is at least as good, and it's not an expensive subscription. I love that it runs locally, too. Strongly recommend!", "excerpt": "Huge fan! Parakeet v3 works great with it. I have used Monologue, Superwhisper, and Aqua, at various times in the past. But Handy is at least as good, and it's not an expensive subscription. I love that it runs locally, too. Strongly recommend!", "context": "", "use_case": "speech-to-text dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Handy \u2013 free open source speech-to-text app"}, {"id": 753035104, "item_id": 47064694, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47064694", "by": "stuckkeys", "date": "2026-02-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you can use Handy app...it is open source so you can make your own mods.", "excerpt": "you can use Handy app...it is open source so you can make your own mods.", "context": "", "use_case": "local speech transcription", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's the best realtime, local, TTS solution? Live call interpretation"}]}, {"label": "Parakeet support", "summary": "Several users say it works well and reliably when configured with NVIDIA Parakeet models.", "quotes": [{"id": 782379584, "item_id": 48898724, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48898724", "by": "bel8", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's  great for me when configured to use Parakeet v3.", "excerpt": "Obligatory mention of Handy which is open-source and cross-platform: https://github.com/cjpais/Handy It's great for me when configured to use Parakeet v3.", "context": "", "use_case": "voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple's new SpeechAnalyzer API, benchmarked against Whisper and its predecessor"}, {"id": 782364177, "item_id": 48897761, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48897761", "by": "dinfinity", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Parakeet V3 via this tool and it is actually quite reliable for me (in English)", "excerpt": "I use Parakeet V3 via this tool and it is actually quite reliable for me (in English): https://github.com/cjpais/Handy", "context": "", "use_case": "speech transcription", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple's new SpeechAnalyzer API, benchmarked against Whisper and its predecessor"}, {"id": 782335712, "item_id": 48895982, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48895982", "by": "trencedamp", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use handy on my own machine and it's perfect with parakeet.", "excerpt": "Came here to post this. I use handy on my own machine and it's perfect with parakeet. If I switch to whisper it makes lots of mistakes", "context": "", "use_case": "voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple's new SpeechAnalyzer API, benchmarked against Whisper and its predecessor"}]}, {"label": "Runs locally", "summary": "Users like that transcription happens on-device and offline, with no API.", "quotes": [{"id": 734786528, "item_id": 45924158, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45924158", "by": "odie5533", "date": "2025-11-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use the app constantly, all day long.", "excerpt": "Handy https://handy.computer/ is a free and open source voice transcription app. Works on macOS, Linux, and Windows, and you can pick which model. Everything runs locally. There is no API. I use the app constantly, all day long.", "context": "", "use_case": "local voice transcription", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why do voice transcription apps charge monthly when Whisper runs locally?"}, {"id": 790920656, "item_id": 49432541, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49432541", "by": "vekker", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Can confirm this is a really excellent piece of OSS for local STT, I use it in both English and Dutch.", "excerpt": "Can confirm this is a really excellent piece of OSS for local STT, I use it in both English and Dutch. The only thing it has trouble with are brand/product/tooling/person names. You can add custom vocabulary, but then it tends to over-correct and insert those custom words when I never said them. However this isn't unique to local STT, frontier cloud models also struggle with this.", "context": "", "use_case": "local speech-to-text", "switched_from": "", "story": "I built a low-latency AI companion that plays Skyrim with me"}, {"id": 755605360, "item_id": 47225335, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47225335", "by": "age123456gpg", "date": "2026-03-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I am using it daily to drive Claude and it works really-well for me (much better than macOS dictation mode).", "excerpt": "Hi all! Check out this Handy app https://github.com/cjpais/Handy - a free, open source, and extensible speech-to-text application that works completely offline. I am using it daily to drive Claude and it works really-well for me (much better than macOS dictation mode).", "context": "", "use_case": "offline speech-to-text for driving Claude", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: I built a sub-500ms latency voice agent from scratch"}]}, {"label": "Cross-platform", "summary": "It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, which commenters cite as a reason to choose it.", "quotes": [{"id": 782894720, "item_id": 48930920, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48930920", "by": "peaxkl", "date": "2026-07-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Very similar to handy [1], which is free, open source [2] and available on Windows, MacOS and Linux.", "excerpt": "Very similar to handy [1], which is free, open source [2] and available on Windows, MacOS and Linux. [1] https://handy.computer/ [2] https://github.com/cjpais/Handy", "context": "", "use_case": "speech-to-text dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Open Source, Free Tier Capable Whispr Using Cloudflare AI"}, {"id": 779307073, "item_id": 48706692, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48706692", "by": "d4rkp4ttern", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Handy is multi-platform, also great", "excerpt": "My current fav STT is Hex, MacOS only: https://github.com/kitlangton/Hex Near-instant accurate-enough transcription using local Parakeet V3. Handy is multi-platform, also great: https://github.com/cjpais/Handy Every time a new STT model or app is announced, I see if it displaces Hex for me but so far none have. I\u2019ll check out Yap though.", "context": "", "use_case": "local speech-to-text", "switched_from": "", "story": "Yap \u2013 free offline voice dictation for Mac/Windows/Linux (Wispr Flow alt)"}, {"id": 783448704, "item_id": 48965544, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48965544", "by": "primaprashant", "date": "2026-07-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Handy is an amazing cross-platform app for dictation from the author.", "excerpt": "Handy is an amazing cross-platform app for dictation from the author. There are other awesome open-source dictation tools as well like native macOS ones. You do not need SaaS subscription in this day and age for transcription. I maintain this list of all the best open-source ones in this awesome-style GitHub repo. People looking for open-source dictation tools, hope you find something that works for you here: https:/", "context": "", "use_case": "dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Transcribe.cpp"}]}, {"label": "Dictating to agents", "summary": "Many use it to dictate prompts straight into Claude Code, Codex and other coding agents.", "quotes": [{"id": 740110336, "item_id": 46256896, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46256896", "by": "rgbrgb", "date": "2025-12-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Handy with Claude code. Nice to just have a key combo to transcribe into whatever has focus.", "excerpt": "I use Handy with Claude code. Nice to just have a key combo to transcribe into whatever has focus. https://github.com/cjpais/Handy", "context": "", "use_case": "voice transcription", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?"}, {"id": 797845712, "item_id": 49865357, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49865357", "by": "kingkongjaffa", "date": "2026-09-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I dictate a lot with https://handy.computer/ text going straight into claude code window.", "excerpt": "- I have a central folder I use with context, project folders, tasks.md files etc. - I have a skill like /plan-my-day that makes a nice html file with tasks list, status of my work and projects etc. - when I'm starting up a new idea I use matt pocock's `grill-me` skill, I dictate a lot with https://handy.computer/ text going straight into claude code window. - once I have a decent brain dump I figure out what to do n", "context": "", "use_case": "voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What does your AI workflow look like?"}, {"id": 784645331, "item_id": 49040333, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49040333", "by": "boc", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You can also download Handy to use voice", "excerpt": "cmux + Claude Code / Codex with a custom agents.md file. With cmux your agents can access the browser, spawn full shells, and you aren't locked-in to a specific vendor. It's really powerful but you need to update your instruction file so your coding harness knows it can use the cmux tools to test. You can also download Handy to use voice so you can just give your feedback via voice into the CLI during the planning ph", "context": "", "use_case": "voice input to CLI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's the best AI coding tool today?"}]}, {"label": "Speed", "summary": "Users describe it as very fast, even on older hardware, though one needed to switch to clipboard input first.", "quotes": [{"id": 749276640, "item_id": 46829790, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46829790", "by": "raajg", "date": "2026-01-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "just tried Handy and it's SO FREAKING FAST! Love it.", "excerpt": "I've been dabbling with STT quite a bit and built my own tool using Deepgram. But just tried Handy and it's SO FREAKING FAST! Love it.", "context": "built own STT tool", "use_case": "speech to text", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's the current best local/open speech-to-speech setup?"}, {"id": 800200704, "item_id": 50012544, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50012544", "by": "apitman", "date": "2026-10-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Love Handy. It has become a core piece of how I use computers.", "excerpt": "Love Handy. It has become a core piece of how I use computers. In case it's helpful to anyone else using it, at first it felt a bit slow to me, because there was a noticeable pause after I finished a message before it would quickly type it all out. I changed the input method from direct to clipboard and it's way faster now, almost instantaneous.", "context": "", "use_case": "speech-to-text dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Whistle: Speech to Text in 16.9 MB"}, {"id": 777394449, "item_id": 48587153, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48587153", "by": "rob", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used both with Handy on my previous 2019 Intel Mac", "excerpt": "Yep, here's the v2 and v3: https://huggingface.co/nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2 https://huggingface.co/nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3 It's almost instant on my new M5 Max w/ 36GB of memory, but I used both with Handy on my previous 2019 Intel Mac w/ 16GB memory and was completely surprised at just how fast it was for being on-device! Not instant, but only a couple seconds.", "context": "", "use_case": "dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "DeepSeek Introduces Vision"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Accuracy limits", "summary": "Some report missed words with accents and trouble with names, where custom vocabulary can over-correct.", "quotes": [{"id": 800835792, "item_id": 50052237, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50052237", "by": "kartik017", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the reason it is bad, it's a 150-200mb binary i remembered downloading, it was not accurate for my accent", "excerpt": "i used handy a year ago, i think it was my first voice dictation app trial. the reason it is bad, it's a 150-200mb binary i remembered downloading, it was not accurate for my accent, was missing lot of words, i tried wisprflow and it was accurate, the dx was top notch and i was a annual plan subscriber, but i think they are cost cutting on inference and all of the features which i mentioned got severely degraded. thi", "context": "", "use_case": "voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: BetterWispr \u2013 Free, open-source dictation for Mac"}, {"id": 790920656, "item_id": 49432541, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49432541", "by": "vekker", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Can confirm this is a really excellent piece of OSS for local STT, I use it in both English and Dutch.", "excerpt": "Can confirm this is a really excellent piece of OSS for local STT, I use it in both English and Dutch. The only thing it has trouble with are brand/product/tooling/person names. You can add custom vocabulary, but then it tends to over-correct and insert those custom words when I never said them. However this isn't unique to local STT, frontier cloud models also struggle with this.", "context": "", "use_case": "local speech-to-text", "switched_from": "", "story": "I built a low-latency AI companion that plays Skyrim with me"}, {"id": 782335712, "item_id": 48895982, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48895982", "by": "trencedamp", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use handy on my own machine and it's perfect with parakeet.", "excerpt": "Came here to post this. I use handy on my own machine and it's perfect with parakeet. If I switch to whisper it makes lots of mistakes", "context": "", "use_case": "voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple's new SpeechAnalyzer API, benchmarked against Whisper and its predecessor"}]}, {"label": "Reliability issues", "summary": "One user switched away over stuttering, and another could not get it working on Fedora.", "quotes": [{"id": 783497234, "item_id": 48968577, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48968577", "by": "d4rkp4ttern", "date": "2026-07-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used to use Handy but as of a few months ago it had stuttering and other issues so I switched to Hex.", "excerpt": "I use the Hex[1] app on MacOs for near instant transcription with Parakeet V3. This is how I speak to Code agents at least 80% of the time. The idea is - I tend to be lazy if I need to type lots of details, so speaking lets me get into details that I otherwise wouldn\u2019t and this helps give more useful context to the agent. This often tends to be an unstructured brain dump so I sometimes ask the agent to repeat back wh", "context": "", "use_case": "voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Speech Recognition and TTS in less than 500kb"}, {"id": 801431952, "item_id": 50089497, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50089497", "by": "dr_kiszonka", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Handy worked fine for me on Windows, but on Fedora, I can't get it to work at all.", "excerpt": "Nice. I will give it a try too. Thanks! Handy worked fine for me on Windows, but on Fedora, I can't get it to work at all.", "context": "Windows and Fedora user", "use_case": "dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Sayso, free open source dictation for Mac, Windows, and Linux"}]}, {"label": "Input latency", "summary": "Some found a pause before text appears or batch-style latency, and one fixed it by switching to clipboard input.", "quotes": [{"id": 800200704, "item_id": 50012544, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50012544", "by": "apitman", "date": "2026-10-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Love Handy. It has become a core piece of how I use computers.", "excerpt": "Love Handy. It has become a core piece of how I use computers. In case it's helpful to anyone else using it, at first it felt a bit slow to me, because there was a noticeable pause after I finished a message before it would quickly type it all out. I changed the input method from direct to clipboard and it's way faster now, almost instantaneous.", "context": "", "use_case": "speech-to-text dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Whistle: Speech to Text in 16.9 MB"}, {"id": 750245520, "item_id": 46890345, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46890345", "by": "Multicomp", "date": "2026-02-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "have been using it for some basic speech recognition, amazed at what a local model can do.", "excerpt": "I'm so amazed to find out just how close we are to the start trek voice computer. I used to use Dragon Dictation to draft my first novel, had to learn a 'language' to tell the rudimentary engine how to recognize my speech. And then I discovered [1] and have been using it for some basic speech recognition, amazed at what a local model can do. But it can't transcribe any text until I finish recording a file, and then i", "context": "novelist", "use_case": "local speech recognition", "switched_from": "Dragon Dictation", "story": "Voxtral Transcribe 2"}, {"id": 791595408, "item_id": 49474713, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49474713", "by": "ghm2199", "date": "2026-08-28", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use Handy on my desktop and i can tolerate a latency of a few seconds", "excerpt": "Realtime + Voice AI usecases is where latency is most important. I use Handy on my desktop and i can tolerate a latency of a few seconds every now and then. Your P99 should on TTFB should be really low to compete for voice ai realtime", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gemini-3.5-Transcribe"}]}, {"label": "Verbatim output", "summary": "One user notes it records words as spoken without fixing grammar, and others run a separate LLM cleanup pass.", "quotes": [{"id": 796969344, "item_id": 49810584, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49810584", "by": "sputknick", "date": "2026-09-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Handy, it's fine", "excerpt": "I use Handy, it's fine, my complaint is that you can't have it clean up your grammar mistakes, it just records your words exactly as is. But for that it's great", "context": "", "use_case": "local speech-to-text dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Anyone using a Wispr Flow alternative that is non-cloud?"}, {"id": 800166496, "item_id": 50010406, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50010406", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-10-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "+1 for handy and then using LLM's for the cleanup pass", "excerpt": "+1 for handy and then using LLM's for the cleanup pass, though what are your observations on feeling as if sharing that output though? Because I have seemingly mixed opinions on it, on one hand, I did put the effort but on the other, the output is AI generated so I am unsure about sharing it with others (because they might think its AI generated) Do you use it for very small edits (removing just the uhhm's?) or for s", "context": "", "use_case": "dictation with LLM cleanup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Whistle: Speech to Text in 16.9 MB"}, {"id": 800150512, "item_id": 50009407, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50009407", "by": "cgbur", "date": "2026-10-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For essentially infinite and fast dictation I use https://github.com/cjpais/Handy on Parakeet streaming", "excerpt": "For essentially infinite and fast dictation I use https://github.com/cjpais/Handy on Parakeet streaming (cohere is far better, but slower and has a token output limit so you cant ramble for many minutes). And then just do a cleanup pass with a cheap LLM, it will in my experience, do far better than trying to voice control to go edit a sentence or change words. I just weave instructions into my writing. I understand t", "context": "writes long-form without using hands", "use_case": "long-form dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Whistle: Speech to Text in 16.9 MB"}]}, {"label": "Missing features", "summary": "Users asked for an iOS app and an API, and one preferred a competitor's UI and feature set.", "quotes": [{"id": 746105520, "item_id": 46631595, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46631595", "by": "Jayakumark", "date": "2026-01-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Its great, i have been using it .", "excerpt": "Its great, i have been using it . Two requests though 1. iOS app 2. API option to use against meeting transcription or route audio from Mic .", "context": "", "use_case": "speech-to-text", "switched_from": "", "story": "Handy \u2013 free open source speech-to-text app"}, {"id": 800741009, "item_id": 50046313, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50046313", "by": "evulhotdog", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I recently switched from Handy to Fluidvoice", "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": "", "story": "Show HN: BetterWispr \u2013 Free, open-source dictation for Mac"}]}], "who": [{"by": "dr_kiszonka", "context": "Windows and Fedora user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50089497", "date": "2026-10-14"}, {"by": "contingencies", "context": "fears RSI", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50011280", "date": "2026-10-08"}, {"by": "cgbur", "context": "writes long-form without using hands", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50009407", "date": "2026-10-08"}, {"by": "zenapollo", "context": "low volume user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49811751", "date": "2026-09-23"}, {"by": "apitman", "context": "has RSI", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48969080", "date": "2026-07-19"}, {"by": "JohnPDickerson", "context": "works at Mozilla.ai", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47668179", "date": "2026-04-06"}, {"by": "d4rkp4ttern", "context": "M1 Max MacBook user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46894999", "date": "2026-02-04"}, {"by": "Multicomp", "context": "novelist", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46890345", "date": "2026-02-04"}, {"by": "raajg", "context": "built own STT tool", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46829790", "date": "2026-01-30"}], "tags": ["for coding agent prompts", "for people with RSI", "offline and local", "for multilingual dictation", "for nontechnical users"], "use_cases": ["voice dictation", "speech-to-text dictation", "speech-to-text", "dictation", "local speech-to-text", "speech-to-text app"], "compared": [{"slug": "parakeet", "name": "Parakeet", "co": 24, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "hex", "name": "Hex", "co": 7, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 4}, {"slug": "wispr-flow", "name": "Wispr Flow", "co": 7, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "whisper", "name": "Whisper", "co": 7, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "superwhisper", "name": "Superwhisper", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "fluidvoice", "name": "FluidVoice", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "pocket-tts", "name": "Pocket-TTS", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "claude-code", "name": "Claude Code", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 804703616, "item_id": 50293976, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50293976", "by": "solarkraft", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "has Nemotron Streaming and it works fabulously well on any Mac down to the base M1", "excerpt": "https://handy.computer has Nemotron Streaming and it works fabulously well on any Mac down to the base M1. I also built a little Deepgram compatible API into it that I use with a phone app.", "context": "", "use_case": "speech transcription", "switched_from": "", "story": "Nvidia Nemotron 3.5 Transcribe: open ASR for 40 languages"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46731068", "title": "Ask HN: What's the current best local/open speech-to-speech setup?", "mentions": 9}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50042333", "title": "Show HN: BetterWispr \u2013 Free, open-source dictation for Mac", "mentions": 5}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48894752", "title": "Apple's new SpeechAnalyzer API, benchmarked against Whisper and its predecessor", "mentions": 5}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50008427", "title": "Whistle: Speech to Text in 16.9 MB", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48963879", "title": "Transcribe.cpp", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48703848", "title": "Yap \u2013 free offline voice dictation for Mac/Windows/Linux (Wispr Flow alt)", "mentions": 3}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 2}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 8, "compare": 1}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 8, "neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 2, "recommend": 3}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 12, "neutral": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 1}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 6, "compare": 1, "neutral": 2, "warn": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 801431952, "item_id": 50089497, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50089497", "by": "dr_kiszonka", "date": "2026-10-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Handy worked fine for me on Windows, but on Fedora, I can't get it to work at all.", "excerpt": "Nice. I will give it a try too. Thanks! Handy worked fine for me on Windows, but on Fedora, I can't get it to work at all.", "context": "Windows and Fedora user", "use_case": "dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Sayso, free open source dictation for Mac, Windows, and Linux"}, {"id": 801203986, "item_id": 50075249, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50075249", "by": "solarkraft", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "hacking a Deepgram API server into Handy", "excerpt": "I used it a lot in my AI client before I finally got around to hacking a Deepgram API server into Handy: It sucks enough to give me a headache worrying about its unreliability in every given transcription. They supposedly improved it on later Apple Intelligence enabled devices, but I don\u2019t have one.", "context": "", "use_case": "speech-to-text app", "switched_from": "", "story": "We turned EmbeddingGemma 2 into a speech-to-text model"}, {"id": 800835792, "item_id": 50052237, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50052237", "by": "kartik017", "date": "2026-10-12", "stance": "warn", "quote": "the reason it is bad, it's a 150-200mb binary i remembered downloading, it was not accurate for my accent", "excerpt": "i used handy a year ago, i think it was my first voice dictation app trial. the reason it is bad, it's a 150-200mb binary i remembered downloading, it was not accurate for my accent, was missing lot of words, i tried wisprflow and it was accurate, the dx was top notch and i was a annual plan subscriber, but i think they are cost cutting on inference and all of the features which i mentioned got severely degraded. thi", "context": "", "use_case": "voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: BetterWispr \u2013 Free, open-source dictation for Mac"}, {"id": 800741009, "item_id": 50046313, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50046313", "by": "evulhotdog", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I recently switched from Handy to Fluidvoice", "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": "", "story": "Show HN: BetterWispr \u2013 Free, open-source dictation for Mac"}, {"id": 800721456, "item_id": 50045091, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50045091", "by": "HnUser12", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use handy.computer in push-to-talk mode. It inserts text in the active text box when you let go.", "excerpt": "I use handy.computer in push-to-talk mode. It inserts text in the active text box when you let go. It also supports auto-submitting at the end, so maybe that would help? I think it can send new line.", "context": "", "use_case": "push-to-talk dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: BetterWispr \u2013 Free, open-source dictation for Mac"}, {"id": 800707089, "item_id": 50044193, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50044193", "by": "NJL3000", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Handy looks slick. May be able to ditch mine", "excerpt": "This came up a month ago - I forked from something now gone - https://github.com/NickJLange/parrot And if MacOS 26 does it right - all of this is no longer necessary for us to vibe fork/ code on weekends :-) P.S. Handy looks slick. May be able to ditch mine", "context": "", "use_case": "dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: BetterWispr \u2013 Free, open-source dictation for Mac"}, {"id": 800699856, "item_id": 50043741, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50043741", "by": "Zizizizz", "date": "2026-10-11", "stance": "compare", "quote": "This reminds me very much in terms of features as https://github.com/cjpais/Handy https://handy.computer", "excerpt": "This reminds me very much in terms of features as https://github.com/cjpais/Handy https://handy.computer , what's the use case for this over that?", "context": "", "use_case": "dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: BetterWispr \u2013 Free, open-source dictation for Mac"}, {"id": 800200704, "item_id": 50012544, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50012544", "by": "apitman", "date": "2026-10-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Love Handy. It has become a core piece of how I use computers.", "excerpt": "Love Handy. It has become a core piece of how I use computers. In case it's helpful to anyone else using it, at first it felt a bit slow to me, because there was a noticeable pause after I finished a message before it would quickly type it all out. I changed the input method from direct to clipboard and it's way faster now, almost instantaneous.", "context": "", "use_case": "speech-to-text dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Whistle: Speech to Text in 16.9 MB"}, {"id": 800180480, "item_id": 50011280, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50011280", "by": "contingencies", "date": "2026-10-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I currently use https://handy.computer/ as it's cross platform and open source.", "excerpt": "For speech to text UX I currently use https://handy.computer/ as it's cross platform and open source. With that I am currently using Parakeet Unified EN 0.6B and finding it excellent. Often I use it to talk to AIs without giving them audio, which works very well. Honestly, I would never go back to typing now. Promised since ~Y2K, the tech is finally here. You really notice it when you wake up at 2AM and don't want to", "context": "fears RSI", "use_case": "speech-to-text dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Whistle: Speech to Text in 16.9 MB"}, {"id": 800166496, "item_id": 50010406, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50010406", "by": "Imustaskforhelp", "date": "2026-10-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "+1 for handy and then using LLM's for the cleanup pass", "excerpt": "+1 for handy and then using LLM's for the cleanup pass, though what are your observations on feeling as if sharing that output though? Because I have seemingly mixed opinions on it, on one hand, I did put the effort but on the other, the output is AI generated so I am unsure about sharing it with others (because they might think its AI generated) Do you use it for very small edits (removing just the uhhm's?) or for s", "context": "", "use_case": "dictation with LLM cleanup", "switched_from": "", "story": "Whistle: Speech to Text in 16.9 MB"}, {"id": 800150512, "item_id": 50009407, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50009407", "by": "cgbur", "date": "2026-10-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For essentially infinite and fast dictation I use https://github.com/cjpais/Handy on Parakeet streaming", "excerpt": "For essentially infinite and fast dictation I use https://github.com/cjpais/Handy on Parakeet streaming (cohere is far better, but slower and has a token output limit so you cant ramble for many minutes). And then just do a cleanup pass with a cheap LLM, it will in my experience, do far better than trying to voice control to go edit a sentence or change words. I just weave instructions into my writing. I understand t", "context": "writes long-form without using hands", "use_case": "long-form dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Whistle: Speech to Text in 16.9 MB"}, {"id": 797845712, "item_id": 49865357, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49865357", "by": "kingkongjaffa", "date": "2026-09-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I dictate a lot with https://handy.computer/ text going straight into claude code window.", "excerpt": "- I have a central folder I use with context, project folders, tasks.md files etc. - I have a skill like /plan-my-day that makes a nice html file with tasks list, status of my work and projects etc. - when I'm starting up a new idea I use matt pocock's `grill-me` skill, I dictate a lot with https://handy.computer/ text going straight into claude code window. - once I have a decent brain dump I figure out what to do n", "context": "", "use_case": "voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What does your AI workflow look like?"}, {"id": 796988017, "item_id": 49811751, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49811751", "by": "zenapollo", "date": "2026-09-23", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I kept my wife on handy while i test this one.", "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": 796969344, "item_id": 49810584, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49810584", "by": "sputknick", "date": "2026-09-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Handy, it's fine", "excerpt": "I use Handy, it's fine, my complaint is that you can't have it clean up your grammar mistakes, it just records your words exactly as is. But for that it's great", "context": "", "use_case": "local speech-to-text dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Anyone using a Wispr Flow alternative that is non-cloud?"}, {"id": 791595408, "item_id": 49474713, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49474713", "by": "ghm2199", "date": "2026-08-28", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use Handy on my desktop and i can tolerate a latency of a few seconds", "excerpt": "Realtime + Voice AI usecases is where latency is most important. I use Handy on my desktop and i can tolerate a latency of a few seconds every now and then. Your P99 should on TTFB should be really low to compete for voice ai realtime", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gemini-3.5-Transcribe"}, {"id": 790920656, "item_id": 49432541, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49432541", "by": "vekker", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Can confirm this is a really excellent piece of OSS for local STT, I use it in both English and Dutch.", "excerpt": "Can confirm this is a really excellent piece of OSS for local STT, I use it in both English and Dutch. The only thing it has trouble with are brand/product/tooling/person names. You can add custom vocabulary, but then it tends to over-correct and insert those custom words when I never said them. However this isn't unique to local STT, frontier cloud models also struggle with this.", "context": "", "use_case": "local speech-to-text", "switched_from": "", "story": "I built a low-latency AI companion that plays Skyrim with me"}, {"id": 789743296, "item_id": 49358956, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49358956", "by": "column", "date": "2026-08-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Free opensource alternative to whisper flow : https://handy.computer", "excerpt": "Free opensource alternative to whisper flow : https://handy.computer", "context": "", "use_case": "voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Claude Code Teaching macOS to Natively Print to the HP Laser 1008a"}, {"id": 785300224, "item_id": 49081264, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49081264", "by": "d3k", "date": "2026-07-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have been using Handy https://handy.computer/ for a while and I am happy with it", "excerpt": "Seems nice! I have been using Handy https://handy.computer/ for a while and I am happy with it (using Parakeet), this seems quite similar in terms of features, except that is uses Apple's APIs.", "context": "", "use_case": "voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Yap \u2013 OSS on-device voice dictation for macOS with no model to download"}, {"id": 784645331, "item_id": 49040333, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49040333", "by": "boc", "date": "2026-07-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You can also download Handy to use voice", "excerpt": "cmux + Claude Code / Codex with a custom agents.md file. With cmux your agents can access the browser, spawn full shells, and you aren't locked-in to a specific vendor. It's really powerful but you need to update your instruction file so your coding harness knows it can use the cmux tools to test. You can also download Handy to use voice so you can just give your feedback via voice into the CLI during the planning ph", "context": "", "use_case": "voice input to CLI", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's the best AI coding tool today?"}, {"id": 784393984, "item_id": 49024624, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49024624", "by": "therealpygon", "date": "2026-07-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Handy is an example, which started as a vibecoded app, and is fantastic for STT/dictation.", "excerpt": "A big seal of quality because it is human written? Maybe in narrow spaces but in general, I\u2019d put money on the average developer being significantly worse at writing code with bugs than an AI. It\u2019s codebergs infra so their choice, but it seems like an overly simplistic solution to a complicated advancing technology, in that it is a threadbare line between \u201cvibe-coded\u201d and \u201ccomplex agent harness with human oversight a", "context": "", "use_case": "speech-to-text dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Regret Migrating to Codeberg"}, {"id": 783505280, "item_id": 48969080, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48969080", "by": "apitman", "date": "2026-07-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I started using Handy last week and I love it. It might single handedly cure my RSI.", "excerpt": "Just wanted to say I started using Handy last week and I love it. It might single handedly cure my RSI. Well, hopefully double handedly.", "context": "has RSI", "use_case": "speech-to-text dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Transcribe.cpp"}, {"id": 783497234, "item_id": 48968577, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48968577", "by": "d4rkp4ttern", "date": "2026-07-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I used to use Handy but as of a few months ago it had stuttering and other issues so I switched to Hex.", "excerpt": "I use the Hex[1] app on MacOs for near instant transcription with Parakeet V3. This is how I speak to Code agents at least 80% of the time. The idea is - I tend to be lazy if I need to type lots of details, so speaking lets me get into details that I otherwise wouldn\u2019t and this helps give more useful context to the agent. This often tends to be an unstructured brain dump so I sometimes ask the agent to repeat back wh", "context": "", "use_case": "voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Speech Recognition and TTS in less than 500kb"}, {"id": 783484752, "item_id": 48967797, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48967797", "by": "nojvek", "date": "2026-07-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Handy everyday. It\u2019s a great project.", "excerpt": "I use Handy everyday. It\u2019s a great project. Thank you for making offline ASR work great on modern machine.", "context": "", "use_case": "offline dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Transcribe.cpp"}, {"id": 783448704, "item_id": 48965544, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48965544", "by": "primaprashant", "date": "2026-07-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Handy is an amazing cross-platform app for dictation from the author.", "excerpt": "Handy is an amazing cross-platform app for dictation from the author. There are other awesome open-source dictation tools as well like native macOS ones. You do not need SaaS subscription in this day and age for transcription. I maintain this list of all the best open-source ones in this awesome-style GitHub repo. People looking for open-source dictation tools, hope you find something that works for you here: https:/", "context": "", "use_case": "dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Transcribe.cpp"}, {"id": 783430512, "item_id": 48964407, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48964407", "by": "ghm2199", "date": "2026-07-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love handy on my Mac, my phone for STT", "excerpt": "Congrats on shipping this. I love handy on my Mac, my phone for STT in situations where it\u2019s not possible/poor performance of the native Model for STT(e.g apple\u2019s thing is not upto scruff, like mistranslating words corresponding to a domain). Noob question: How do you think about funding from a foundation(i have no clue if you need it or not, I do hope you have a way to get paid one way or another because handy is am", "context": "", "use_case": "speech-to-text dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Transcribe.cpp"}, {"id": 782894720, "item_id": 48930920, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48930920", "by": "peaxkl", "date": "2026-07-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Very similar to handy [1], which is free, open source [2] and available on Windows, MacOS and Linux.", "excerpt": "Very similar to handy [1], which is free, open source [2] and available on Windows, MacOS and Linux. [1] https://handy.computer/ [2] https://github.com/cjpais/Handy", "context": "", "use_case": "speech-to-text dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Open Source, Free Tier Capable Whispr Using Cloudflare AI"}, {"id": 782392944, "item_id": 48899559, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48899559", "by": "cootsnuck", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For just desktop, I use Handy (open source)", "excerpt": "For just desktop, I use Handy (open source): https://handy.computer/ And yea, Nvidia's Parakeet v3 is good enough for my own just local transcription most of the time. When I need local transcription to be more reliable and I don't have the energy to proof read a long ramble, I still often just pop open chatGPT, dictate, cut, paste. But we're pretty much already to the point where local transcription models can repla", "context": "", "use_case": "local desktop transcription", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple's new SpeechAnalyzer API, benchmarked against Whisper and its predecessor"}, {"id": 782392416, "item_id": 48899526, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48899526", "by": "akurilin", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I took a swing at bringing this into Handy.computer if anybody's interested", "excerpt": "I took a swing at bringing this into Handy.computer if anybody's interested: https://github.com/cjpais/Handy/discussions/1031 . Looks like there had been suggestions in the past for someone to try it out, but no proposed PRs. This article was inspiring.", "context": "", "use_case": "speech-to-text app", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple's new SpeechAnalyzer API, benchmarked against Whisper and its predecessor"}, {"id": 782379584, "item_id": 48898724, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48898724", "by": "bel8", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's  great for me when configured to use Parakeet v3.", "excerpt": "Obligatory mention of Handy which is open-source and cross-platform: https://github.com/cjpais/Handy It's great for me when configured to use Parakeet v3.", "context": "", "use_case": "voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple's new SpeechAnalyzer API, benchmarked against Whisper and its predecessor"}, {"id": 782364177, "item_id": 48897761, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48897761", "by": "dinfinity", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Parakeet V3 via this tool and it is actually quite reliable for me (in English)", "excerpt": "I use Parakeet V3 via this tool and it is actually quite reliable for me (in English): https://github.com/cjpais/Handy", "context": "", "use_case": "speech transcription", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple's new SpeechAnalyzer API, benchmarked against Whisper and its predecessor"}, {"id": 782335712, "item_id": 48895982, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48895982", "by": "trencedamp", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use handy on my own machine and it's perfect with parakeet.", "excerpt": "Came here to post this. I use handy on my own machine and it's perfect with parakeet. If I switch to whisper it makes lots of mistakes", "context": "", "use_case": "voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple's new SpeechAnalyzer API, benchmarked against Whisper and its predecessor"}, {"id": 779421552, "item_id": 48713847, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48713847", "by": "youniverse", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use handy and it does the job very well", "excerpt": "I use handy and it does the job very well, is there a difference with hex or any other transcription app if we are using the same underlying model? Or just UI/UX stuff?", "context": "", "use_case": "voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Yap \u2013 free offline voice dictation for Mac/Windows/Linux (Wispr Flow alt)"}, {"id": 779307073, "item_id": 48706692, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48706692", "by": "d4rkp4ttern", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Handy is multi-platform, also great", "excerpt": "My current fav STT is Hex, MacOS only: https://github.com/kitlangton/Hex Near-instant accurate-enough transcription using local Parakeet V3. Handy is multi-platform, also great: https://github.com/cjpais/Handy Every time a new STT model or app is announced, I see if it displaces Hex for me but so far none have. I\u2019ll check out Yap though.", "context": "", "use_case": "local speech-to-text", "switched_from": "", "story": "Yap \u2013 free offline voice dictation for Mac/Windows/Linux (Wispr Flow alt)"}, {"id": 779296672, "item_id": 48706042, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48706042", "by": "taffydavid", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "something tried and tested like Handy, which is free, open source, on-device, does post capture correction and isn't limited to whisper", "excerpt": "I love on-device transcription apps, but this looks like yet another AI generated whisper wrapper. I'm put off by the readme which is clearly LLM generated, with emdash all over the place and bits that smell of user questions turned into talking points. > Why not the Fn / key? It's the obvious one-finger choice, but on macOS the Fn key emits no real keypress \u2014 only a hidden hardware flag \u2014 so And > macOS permissions ", "context": "", "use_case": "offline voice dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Yap \u2013 free offline voice dictation for Mac/Windows/Linux (Wispr Flow alt)"}, {"id": 777394449, "item_id": 48587153, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48587153", "by": "rob", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used both with Handy on my previous 2019 Intel Mac", "excerpt": "Yep, here's the v2 and v3: https://huggingface.co/nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2 https://huggingface.co/nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3 It's almost instant on my new M5 Max w/ 36GB of memory, but I used both with Handy on my previous 2019 Intel Mac w/ 16GB memory and was completely surprised at just how fast it was for being on-device! Not instant, but only a couple seconds.", "context": "", "use_case": "dictation", "switched_from": "", "story": "DeepSeek Introduces Vision"}, {"id": 777387489, "item_id": 48586718, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48586718", "by": "rafaelm", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use it too in Handy, for English and Spanish transcriptions", "excerpt": "I believe this is the correct link. I use it too in Handy, for English and Spanish transcriptions: https://huggingface.co/nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v3", "context": "", "use_case": "transcription", "switched_from": "", "story": "DeepSeek Introduces Vision"}, {"id": 777374128, "item_id": 48585883, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48585883", "by": "rob", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "You have to enable \"Experimental Features\" under \"Advanced.\"", "excerpt": "You have to enable \"Experimental Features\" under \"Advanced.\" This is the prompt I use (it's probably overkill and can be condensed): https://pastebin.com/raw/RUVAqLCU", "context": "", "use_case": "dictation post-processing", "switched_from": "", "story": "DeepSeek Introduces Vision"}, {"id": 771096896, "item_id": 48193556, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48193556", "by": "adamcharnock", "date": "2026-05-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I moved to running the 'Whisper Large' model locally using Handy", "excerpt": "FWIW - I also really like Wispr Flow, but I moved to running the 'Whisper Large' model locally using Handy (https://github.com/cjpais/Handy), which has been essentially as good, while also having lower latency.", "context": "", "use_case": "local speech to text", "switched_from": "Wispr Flow", "story": "New accessibility features powered by Apple Intelligence"}, {"id": 770334273, "item_id": 48145892, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48145892", "by": "arend321", "date": "2026-05-15", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "voice-to-text with handy", "excerpt": "I've been trying out various mobile, ai-assisted coding workflows. Packing a Linux mini-pc in my rucksack, connected to display glasses, and voice-to-text with handy. Voice to text gets injected into a remote (Docker) codex session, running a hot reload web stack. I prompt to implement various features in an existing code base, where codex understands the structure and requirements. If a feature is done, I take a mom", "context": "", "use_case": "voice-to-text", "switched_from": "", "story": "Work with Codex from Anywhere"}, {"id": 767173636, "item_id": 47948352, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47948352", "by": "d4rkp4ttern", "date": "2026-04-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "also good free/OSS alternatives: Handy, VoiceInk.", "excerpt": "This was on HN 7 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45114245 Every time a STT/TTS model is posted I wonder if it will change my current workflow on MacOS, which is: STT with Parakeet-V3 via Hex [1] app for near-instant good-enough transcription for talking to AI agents. TTS using KyutAI\u2019s Pocket-TTS, an amazing 100M-param model. I used this to make a \"voice\" plugin [2] for Claude Code So far I haven\u2019t s", "context": "", "use_case": "speech-to-text", "switched_from": "", "story": "Microsoft VibeVoice: Open-Source Frontier Voice AI"}, {"id": 749276640, "item_id": 46829790, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46829790", "by": "raajg", "date": "2026-01-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "just tried Handy and it's SO FREAKING FAST! Love it.", "excerpt": "I've been dabbling with STT quite a bit and built my own tool using Deepgram. But just tried Handy and it's SO FREAKING FAST! Love it.", "context": "built own STT tool", "use_case": "speech to text", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's the current best local/open speech-to-speech setup?"}, {"id": 740110336, "item_id": 46256896, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46256896", "by": "rgbrgb", "date": "2025-12-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Handy with Claude code. Nice to just have a key combo to transcribe into whatever has focus.", "excerpt": "I use Handy with Claude code. Nice to just have a key combo to transcribe into whatever has focus. https://github.com/cjpais/Handy", "context": "", "use_case": "voice transcription", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How can I get better at using AI for programming?"}, {"id": 734786528, "item_id": 45924158, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45924158", "by": "odie5533", "date": "2025-11-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use the app constantly, all day long.", "excerpt": "Handy https://handy.computer/ is a free and open source voice transcription app. Works on macOS, Linux, and Windows, and you can pick which model. Everything runs locally. There is no API. I use the app constantly, all day long.", "context": "", "use_case": "local voice transcription", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why do voice transcription apps charge monthly when Whisper runs locally?"}]}