{"slug": "openwhispr", "name": "OpenWhispr", "category": "ai", "category_name": "AI tools and apps", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 7, "warners": 1, "score": 3.37, "rising": -1.31, "first": "2026-01-12", "latest": "2026-07-29", "why": "OpenWhispr is local Whisper model that I also run locally. And still, no data leaks. And since its local, its also FAST.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 2, "compare": 1, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "OpenWhispr is local Whisper model that I also run locally. And still, no data leaks. And since its local, its also FAST.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/openwhispr/openwhispr", "official_url": "https://github.com/OpenWhispr/openwhispr", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["OpenWhispr", "open-whispr"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 785577730, "item_id": 49098608, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49098608", "by": "Centigonal", "date": "2026-07-29", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you're better off using MacParakeet, OpenWhispr, etc.", "excerpt": "It's free for a limited number of notes. I guess you could copypaste the note summaries out to Obsidian or something, but at that point you're better off using MacParakeet, OpenWhispr, etc. https://www.granola.ai/pricing", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Granola for Apple Watch"}, {"id": 781303716, "item_id": 48831482, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48831482", "by": "nekusar", "date": "2026-07-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "OpenWhispr is local Whisper model that I also run locally. And still, no data leaks. And since its local, its also FAST.", "excerpt": "Thank you for addressing my list. I'd like to use it, but requirements on non-local services is a deal breaker for me. Right now, with my Nanoclaw, I'm running it in a container on a VM on proxmox. If things get bad, I lose a backed up machine and any services it has credentials to. I can understand why IMAP is a pain. There's plenty of functions that can trash mailboxes. I don't envy you all in this task. For my STT", "context": "", "use_case": "local speech-to-text", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Rowboat \u2013 Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop"}, {"id": 781165523, "item_id": 48822845, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48822845", "by": "dmayle", "date": "2026-07-07", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've been using it with OpenWhispr (a desktop app for transcription that handles all sorts of neat thing).", "excerpt": "Fun... This is something I actually care about... I used to keep a version of whisperx around, because I think it's important to have not just transcription, but also timing and speaker identification (e.g. for subtitles)... It depends on pyannote, though, which has some wierd licensing (and is tougher to script the installs because of it), so I wanted to look at something that both had better transcription, and supp", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop transcription", "switched_from": "", "story": "Local, CPU-Friendly, High-Quality TTS (Text-to-Speech) with Kokoro"}, {"id": 762701520, "item_id": 47668845, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47668845", "by": "raybb", "date": "2026-04-06", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I like that openwhisper lets me do on device and set a remote provider.", "excerpt": "Would also like to know how it compares to https://github.com/openwhispr/openwhispr I like that openwhisper lets me do on device and set a remote provider.", "context": "", "use_case": "speech-to-text", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Ghost Pepper \u2013 100% local hold-to-talk speech-to-text for macOS"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 745397059, "item_id": 46587316, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46587316", "by": "mft_", "date": "2026-01-12", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "(Oh, it failed - open-whispr).", "excerpt": "> I agree in broad terms, but let me re-capitulate this. Which OS do you think would offer a better experience for non-experts when installing on bare-metal? By my reckoning, Windows is a nightmare to install afresh on random hardware, and MacOS wont work on most-all random hardware. Users think that Windows is easier because they almost never have to install it from scratch. I've done multiple installs of every Wind", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["speech-to-text", "local speech-to-text", "desktop transcription"], "compared": [{"slug": "handy", "name": "Handy", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49089026", "title": "Granola for Apple Watch", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48819808", "title": "Show HN: Rowboat \u2013 Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48821576", "title": "Local, CPU-Friendly, High-Quality TTS (Text-to-Speech) with Kokoro", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48078497", "title": "Show HN: Free OSS transcription app I made and found it's faster than wispr flow", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47666024", "title": "Show HN: Ghost Pepper \u2013 100% local hold-to-talk speech-to-text for macOS", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47006248", "title": "Show HN: OpenWhisper \u2013 free, local, and private voice-to-text macOS app", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"warn": 1, "compare": 1}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 3}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 785577730, "item_id": 49098608, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49098608", "by": "Centigonal", "date": "2026-07-29", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "you're better off using MacParakeet, OpenWhispr, etc.", "excerpt": "It's free for a limited number of notes. I guess you could copypaste the note summaries out to Obsidian or something, but at that point you're better off using MacParakeet, OpenWhispr, etc. https://www.granola.ai/pricing", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Granola for Apple Watch"}, {"id": 781303716, "item_id": 48831482, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48831482", "by": "nekusar", "date": "2026-07-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "OpenWhispr is local Whisper model that I also run locally. And still, no data leaks. And since its local, its also FAST.", "excerpt": "Thank you for addressing my list. I'd like to use it, but requirements on non-local services is a deal breaker for me. Right now, with my Nanoclaw, I'm running it in a container on a VM on proxmox. If things get bad, I lose a backed up machine and any services it has credentials to. I can understand why IMAP is a pain. There's plenty of functions that can trash mailboxes. I don't envy you all in this task. For my STT", "context": "", "use_case": "local speech-to-text", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Rowboat \u2013 Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop"}, {"id": 781165523, "item_id": 48822845, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48822845", "by": "dmayle", "date": "2026-07-07", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've been using it with OpenWhispr (a desktop app for transcription that handles all sorts of neat thing).", "excerpt": "Fun... This is something I actually care about... I used to keep a version of whisperx around, because I think it's important to have not just transcription, but also timing and speaker identification (e.g. for subtitles)... It depends on pyannote, though, which has some wierd licensing (and is tougher to script the installs because of it), so I wanted to look at something that both had better transcription, and supp", "context": "", "use_case": "desktop transcription", "switched_from": "", "story": "Local, CPU-Friendly, High-Quality TTS (Text-to-Speech) with Kokoro"}, {"id": 769291108, "item_id": 48080694, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48080694", "by": "wunderlotus", "date": "2026-05-09", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "[4] - https://github.com/OpenWhispr/openwhispr", "excerpt": "what is the value prop of mumbli vs the myriad of OSS STT tools that already exist like handy [1], hex [2], ghostpepper [3], OpenWhispr [4], any of the ones listed here [5] or here [6]? [1] - https://github.com/cjpais/Handy [2] - https://github.com/kitlangton/Hex [3] - https://github.com/matthartman/ghost-pepper [4] - https://github.com/OpenWhispr/openwhispr [5] - https://github.com/FluidInference/FluidAudio#showcase", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Free OSS transcription app I made and found it's faster than wispr flow"}, {"id": 762701520, "item_id": 47668845, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47668845", "by": "raybb", "date": "2026-04-06", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I like that openwhisper lets me do on device and set a remote provider.", "excerpt": "Would also like to know how it compares to https://github.com/openwhispr/openwhispr I like that openwhisper lets me do on device and set a remote provider.", "context": "", "use_case": "speech-to-text", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Ghost Pepper \u2013 100% local hold-to-talk speech-to-text for macOS"}, {"id": 752199824, "item_id": 47012489, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47012489", "by": "PhilippGille", "date": "2026-02-13", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "That's a very similar name as https://github.com/OpenWhispr/openwhispr", "excerpt": "That's a very similar name as https://github.com/OpenWhispr/openwhispr Which is a voice to text app as well.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: OpenWhisper \u2013 free, local, and private voice-to-text macOS app"}, {"id": 746072561, "item_id": 46629535, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46629535", "by": "PhilippGille", "date": "2026-01-15", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "Has anyone compared this with https://github.com/HeroTools/open-whispr already?", "excerpt": "Has anyone compared this with https://github.com/HeroTools/open-whispr already? From the description they seem very similar. Handy first release was June 2025, OpenWhispr a month later. Handy has ~11k GitHub stars, OpenWhispr has ~730.", "context": "", "use_case": "Speech-to-text", "switched_from": "", "story": "Handy \u2013 free open source speech-to-text app"}, {"id": 745397059, "item_id": 46587316, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46587316", "by": "mft_", "date": "2026-01-12", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "(Oh, it failed - open-whispr).", "excerpt": "> I agree in broad terms, but let me re-capitulate this. Which OS do you think would offer a better experience for non-experts when installing on bare-metal? By my reckoning, Windows is a nightmare to install afresh on random hardware, and MacOS wont work on most-all random hardware. Users think that Windows is easier because they almost never have to install it from scratch. I've done multiple installs of every Wind", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great"}]}