Speakhold
Speakhold vs Superwhisper
Superwhisper is the closest thing to Speakhold: native, on-device, Whisper. The differences are price, openness and meetings.
Where they are the same
Both are native Mac apps that run Whisper on your own machine, so the audio stays local and dictation works offline. Both have a floating indicator while recording, a personal vocabulary, and a cleanup step after transcription. If you like Superwhisper, you will find Speakhold familiar.
Where they differ
| Speakhold | Superwhisper | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, MIT licence | US$8.49 a month or a one-off licence |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Hotkey | Any chord, left/right-specific | Partial |
| Cleanup without a key | Yes, Apple Intelligence on-device | Yes, local models |
| Records calls and writes notes | Yes, both sides, no bot, notes in the background | Meeting mode |
| Model choice | Whisper Large v3 Turbo, Large v3, Distil, Base; Parakeet for meetings | Many, including cloud |
| Modes and templates | Dictionary, style notes, text replacements | Extensive mode system |
As of October 2026. Corrections welcome via pull request.
Why people switch
Superwhisper is a good product and charges for it. Speakhold is free and you can read every line that touches your microphone. For meetings, Speakhold records your mic and what the Mac is playing as two streams, so you and the other side are labelled, and it writes the notes in the background after you stop, through Claude Code on your Mac, your own Claude key, or Apple Intelligence.
Why you might stay with Superwhisper
Superwhisper's mode system is deeper: per-app prompts, templates, more model choice, more languages tested. If you have built workflows on that, Speakhold's single dictionary and style box will feel thin. It also has a longer track record and paid support.
Is the accuracy the same?
Same model family. Speakhold defaults to Whisper Large v3 Turbo on the Neural Engine; you can pick Large v3 for accuracy or Base for speed.
Can I use a local LLM for cleanup?
On macOS 26 Speakhold uses Apple Intelligence on-device. There is no Ollama hookup yet; it is on the roadmap in CONTRIBUTING.
Does it handle meetings?
Yes. "Record meeting" captures both sides of a Zoom, Meet or Teams call without a bot and stops itself when the call app lets go of the microphone.
Try it
Free · MIT · macOS 14+ · Apple Silicon · brew install --cask sturzael/tap/speakhold
Compared with Willow Voice · Wispr Flow · Superwhisper · MacWhisper · Fireflies · Otter · How to record a call without a bot