OpenWhispr

The free alternative toWispr Flow,Granola

🟢 Beginner⏱️ ~5 min to installYou save €13/mo

OpenWhispr turns your voice into text, everywhere: press a key, speak, and the text appears exactly where your cursor is. Email, WhatsApp, a Claude prompt, a doc: any app. It also transcribes your meetings (Zoom, Teams, FaceTime detected automatically, with who said what) and files everything into searchable notes. The difference with Wispr Flow: it is open source, has no word cap, and offers a fully local mode where your audio never leaves your machine. Your choice: everything on-device with Whisper or Parakeet, or the cloud with your own API key.

8.3kView on GitHub ↗

Versus Wispr Flow: the match

Price
OpenWhispr
€0, forever
Wispr Flow
€13/mo to dictate without limits
Dictation volume
OpenWhispr
Unlimited
Wispr Flow
2,000 words per week on the free plan
Your audio
OpenWhispr
Can stay on your machine (local mode)
Wispr Flow
Goes to their servers

Wispr Flow ↗

VS	OpenWhispr	Wispr Flow ↗
Price	€0, forever	€13/mo to dictate without limits
Dictation volume	Unlimited	2,000 words per week on the free plan
Your audio	Can stay on your machine (local mode)	Goes to their servers
Meetings	Transcription included, on-device	You need Granola on top
AI model	Yours: local or your own key	Theirs, imposed

How to install it (even from zero)

This is the simplest page in the library: a regular desktop app. No Docker, no terminal, no server.

Paste this prompt into Claude (Code or Desktop)

It will fetch the latest version from the official GitHub repo, install it on your machine and guide you through choosing the engine:

Installe OpenWhispr sur ma machine (l'app open source de dictée vocale, repo GitHub OpenWhispr/openwhispr) : télécharge la dernière release depuis github.com/OpenWhispr/openwhispr/releases pour mon système d'exploitation et installe-la. Ensuite, aide-moi à la configurer : dis-moi, selon ma machine, si je dois choisir la transcription locale (Whisper ou Parakeet) ou le cloud avec ma propre clé API, puis guide-moi pour choisir mon raccourci de dictée. Explique chaque étape simplement, je débute.

Review the GitHub repository and check whether it is safe to install given my machine and my infrastructure. Ask me as many questions as possible, using widgets, to clarify my request and be as precise as you can.

2
Allow microphone and accessibility
On first launch, your system asks for two permissions: the microphone (to hear you) and accessibility (to type for you). Accept both, Claude shows you where to click.
3
Press your key and speak
Open any app, place your cursor, press your shortcut, dictate. The text types itself. That is all.

What you actually do with it

Your messages and prompts by voice

Emails, WhatsApp, Claude prompts: you speak three times faster than you type. One key, your sentence, and the text is already written in the right place.

Your meetings transcribed, no cloud

It detects your Zoom, Teams or FaceTime calls, transcribes live and identifies who is speaking. Everything happens on your machine: a client meeting's audio goes nowhere.

A voice memo becomes a clean note

Drop in an audio file, a video or a YouTube link: it transcribes and files everything into organized, searchable notes with folders. Your second brain feeds on your voice.

Project health, at a glance

Before installing an open-source tool, one question matters: is the project alive? These scores are computed from public GitHub data. They are not made up.

90/100

Excellent

Very active, well-maintained project: go ahead with confidence.

Activity: 100
Maintenance: 100
Community: 80
Maturity: 70
Momentum: 98

The repo in numbers

GitHub stars: 8.3k
Forks: 1k
Contributors: 88
Commits: 2.2k
Project age: 1.2 yrs
Last commit: today
Size: 104.4 MB
License: MIT

Built with

JavaScript 61.7%
TypeScript 34.1%
C 1.8%
Objective-C 0.7%
Swift 0.7%

Scores computed automatically from the GitHub API (last-30-days activity, update freshness, community size, project age). Refreshed daily.

Loucash’s take

8/10

Wispr Flow sits in my expenses tracker: I pay for it every month, so I know exactly what that line costs over a year. OpenWhispr does the same dictation (the key, you speak, text appears at your cursor) and adds what Wispr will never offer: a fully local mode where your audio stays home. The thing to know: locally, quality depends on your machine. On a recent Apple Silicon Mac it is excellent; on an older machine, use the cloud with your own API key, still subscription-free.

It’s for you if: You write a lot (messages, emails, prompts) and you pay for a dictation tool, or you still type everything by hand.