A free, open source superwhisper alternative for the Mac

By Ryleigh Newman · Published September 17, 2026 · Updated October 7, 2026

YapToText is a free, open source superwhisper alternative for the Mac: a record key and a local Whisper model, as in superwhisper, with AI cleanup, voice editing and file transcription included instead of held back for Pro. superwhisper has a real free plan that does not expire, and it runs on Windows, iPhone and Android as well, so this page says what you keep, what changes, and when to stay. If one app is not enough to choose from, five more alternatives are compared below.

This app is completely free. You don't have to make an account. There are no subscriptions, no difficult downloads, and nothing is locked. Made for Apple silicon Macs. Source on GitHub.

This guide in other languages: العربية, Čeština, Dansk, Deutsch, Ελληνικά, Español, Suomi, Français, עברית, हिन्दी, Magyar, Bahasa Indonesia, Italiano, 日本語, 한국어, Norsk, Nederlands, Polski, Português, Română, Русский, Slovenčina, Svenska, ไทย, Türkçe, Українська, Tiếng Việt, 简体中文, 繁體中文

On this page: 8 sections

1. Side by side
2. What you keep, and what changes
3. Five more superwhisper alternatives
4. Move over in about ten minutes
   1. Step 1: Choose your key
   2. Step 2: Move your vocabulary and replacements
   3. Step 3: Rebuild a custom mode
5. If a word comes out wrong
6. What superwhisper does that YapToText does not
7. The short version
8. Questions

Side by side

My hands make typing difficult, so I dictate every day, and superwhisper, which plenty of people type as super whisper, is the app YapToText most resembles. I built YapToText, so read what I say about superwhisper with that in mind. Every superwhisper fact below comes from superwhisper.com and its documentation, read on October 3, 2026.

Checked October 3, 2026, on superwhisper.com.

The full comparison adds Wispr Flow, MacWhisper, VoiceInk and Apple Dictation, and the VoiceInk alternative page covers the other open-source option.

Every superwhisper plan, with what the free one leaves out, is on the superwhisper pricing page.

What you keep, and what changes

Here is the switch job by job, superwhisper first and YapToText second. You keep local Whisper dictation, and the AI half stops costing money.

• Dictating into any app. superwhisper's free plan includes unlimited dictation with any local Whisper model. YapToText ships Whisper Large v3 Turbo (Q5), 574 MB, inside the app and types at your cursor when you tap Right Command, talk, and tap it again.

• Cleanup and formatting. On superwhisper's free plan you get up to two modes without AI processing. Super, Mail and every other mode that runs your words through AI are Pro. In YapToText, Auto mode and the six built-in modes, Raw Transcription, Clean Up, Note, Email, Message and Code Comment, are free, and the cleanup model, Phi-3.5 Mini, runs on your Mac. The modes guide shows what each one does.
• Editing by voice. superwhisper's Super Mode takes spoken commands on selected text, such as turning it into bullet points, and it is a Pro feature. YapToText's Quick Edit does the same job for free: select text in any app, tap Right Option, say the change, and tap again.

• Context. A superwhisper mode can read the active app, the text you copied and the text you selected, and those options need Pro. In YapToText, each mode's AI cleanup can see the app you are dictating into, the text you have selected and your clipboard, at no price.
• Your names and words. superwhisper's free plan includes custom vocabulary and text replacements. YapToText's Dictionaries do both jobs in one place: each entry says what was heard and what to write, and the spelling you want also primes the speech model.
• Files. File transcription is a Pro feature in superwhisper. YapToText transcribes audio and video files, Voice Memos included, from the Utility page or the menu bar, free, as plain text. The file transcription guide walks through it.
• Price. superwhisper Pro is $8.49 a month, $84.99 a year or $249.99 once, and new users get 3,000 words of Pro features to try. YapToText has no Pro at all, and the optional tips buy no features.
• Accessibility. superwhisper's accessibility page says it pastes at the cursor, beside screen readers like VoiceOver and NVDA. YapToText announces every state to VoiceOver and takes anything that presses one key as its trigger, though I have not tested every switch interface. The accessibility page covers the settings that help.
• Where your voice goes. superwhisper's privacy policy, last updated June 19, 2024, says audio is transcribed on your device and that no recordings or transcriptions are collected. Its cloud models, from superwhisper, Deepgram and ElevenLabs, are all on Pro. YapToText has no cloud option at all: your voice never leaves your Mac.

Five more superwhisper alternatives

If YapToText is not the right fit, here are five more alternatives to superwhisper, each with a page of its own here. Three of the five publish their code, and two of those are free.

Checked October 3 to 5, 2026, on each app's own pages.

The roundup of open source dictation apps goes deeper on the three with public code, the roundup of free dictation apps ranks the free plans, superwhisper's included, and dictation software for Mac, compared sets seven options in one table.

Move over in about ten minutes

You can keep superwhisper installed while you try it. Your text replacements carry over almost one to one, because a dictionary entry is the same idea.

First install YapToText and turn on its two permissions, Microphone and Accessibility. The first dictation guide walks through that. Then three steps are specific to coming from superwhisper.

Step 1: Choose your key

• You: On the Dictation page, in the Keys card, keep Right Command or record another key, and choose Tap to start / stop or Hold to talk. If you pick the shortcut superwhisper uses, quit superwhisper first.
• YapToText: Listens for that key on its own. A tap only counts when no other key was pressed with it, so Command C still copies.
• Check: Click into a note, start, say one sentence, and stop. The capybara's speech bubble in the menu bar turns red while you talk, and the words land at your cursor. If they went to the clipboard instead, Accessibility is not on yet.

Step 2: Move your vocabulary and replacements

• You: On the Dictionaries page, add each superwhisper text replacement as one entry: what it hears under Heard, what it should write under Replace with, then Add. For a single word, select it in any note, tap Right Option, and say add this to my dictionary.
• YapToText: Applies the entries to every transcript from then on, and primes the speech model with the spellings you want.
• Check: Dictate a sentence with one of those words, and it comes out your way. If it does not, open the word's folder on the Dictionaries page and press Generate variations to add the ways it gets misheard.

Step 3: Rebuild a custom mode

• You: On the Modes page, press New Mode, turn on Rewrite the transcript with AI, and paste your superwhisper instructions under Instructions. Under Apps that use this mode, add the apps where it should switch on by itself.
• YapToText: Runs those instructions through the cleanup model on your Mac whenever that mode is in use.
• Check: In the Try it out card, paste a sample and press Preview with AI. The Result is what the mode will type.

If a word comes out wrong

If YapToText mishears a word superwhisper used to get right, work down this list:

1. Teach it the word. Select the right spelling anywhere, tap Right Option, and say add this to my dictionary. The entry also primes the speech model.
2. Add the ways it gets misheard. Open the word's folder on the Dictionaries page and press Generate variations, which suggests sound-alikes for that word.
3. Check the language. On the AI Models page, the Language picker starts at your Mac's system language, not auto-detect. Set it to what you actually speak.
4. Try a bigger speech model. The same page lists larger Whisper models, such as the full Whisper Large v3 Turbo at 1.5 GB and Whisper Large v3 at 3.0 GB. I picked the 5-bit default because, on my own dictations, it heard almost exactly what the full Turbo model heard, with a third of the memory.

The models guide explains every model on that page, and the Dictionaries guide covers entries in depth.

What superwhisper does that YapToText does not

superwhisper is good software, and some of what it does, I do not do at all. If you want cloud models, Windows or a phone, superwhisper is the one to keep.

• Other devices. superwhisper runs on the Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android, and one Pro license covers all of them. YapToText is a Mac app only.
• More kinds of models. superwhisper offers Parakeet and Cohere Transcribe on the Mac, and cloud models from superwhisper, Deepgram and ElevenLabs, on Pro. YapToText runs Whisper models only, and only on your Mac.
• Older and Intel Macs. Current superwhisper releases need macOS 14 or later. Its troubleshooting guide names 2.16.1 as the last release for macOS 13.3, though its download page still said 13.3 on October 6, 2026. Its FAQ points Intel Macs to its cloud models, because its offline models only run really well on Apple silicon. YapToText needs an Apple silicon Mac with macOS 14 or later.
• More languages. superwhisper lists more than 100. YapToText's picker has 29 languages plus auto-detect, and its interface is English only.
• Websites as triggers. A superwhisper mode can switch on for chosen websites as well as apps. YapToText switches modes by app.
• Speakers and translation. superwhisper Pro separates speakers, and superwhisper can translate dictation into English with a multilingual Whisper model. YapToText labels no speakers, and Quick Edit translates only a selection you ask it to.

The short version

• What you gain. You get AI cleanup, Quick Edit, file transcription and custom modes, free and on your Mac.
• What it takes. It takes about ten minutes, most of it moving your replacements into Dictionaries.
• When to stay. If you need cloud models, Windows or a phone, an Intel Mac, or a language outside the 29.

YapToText is free with no paid tier, and the download page has both ways to install it.

If you are also weighing Willow Voice, the Willow Voice comparison uses the same checks.

If superwhisper's free plan stops short of what you need, YapToText covers that ground for free. If something here does not match what you see in either app, open an issue on GitHub. Every one gets read.

This app is completely free. You don't have to make an account. There are no subscriptions, no difficult downloads, and nothing is locked. Made for Apple silicon Macs. Source on GitHub.

About the author. Ryleigh Newman is a developer whose hands make typing difficult and who dictates every day with YapToText, the app this site describes. Facts about other apps come from their own sites, with the date they were read. More about the project.

Related

• superwhisper guides: every page on this site about superwhisper, by topic
• superwhisper vs Wispr Flow vs Typeless: three apps compared on their own makers' numbers
• superwhisper vs Wispr Flow vs Willow Voice: three apps compared on their own makers' numbers
• superwhisper vs Wispr Flow vs VoiceInk: three apps compared on their own makers' numbers
• superwhisper vs Otter.ai: the two compared on their own makers' numbers
• superwhisper vs TypeWhisper: the two compared on their own makers' numbers
• superwhisper vs Handy: the two compared on their own makers' numbers
• superwhisper vs FluidVoice: the two compared on their own makers' numbers
• superwhisper vs Apple Dictation: what the built-in tool does free, and what superwhisper adds
• superwhisper privacy and safety: what stays on your device, and what a cloud model sends

Sources

• https://superwhisper.com (checked 2026-10-03)
• https://superwhisper.com/docs/billing/plans (checked 2026-10-06)
• https://superwhisper.com/docs/models/voice (checked 2026-10-03)
• https://superwhisper.com/docs/modes/built-in (checked 2026-10-03)
• https://superwhisper.com/docs/modes/modes (checked 2026-10-03)
• https://superwhisper.com/privacy (checked 2026-10-03)
• https://superwhisper.com/for-accessibility (checked 2026-10-03)
• https://superwhisper.com/download (checked 2026-10-06)
• https://apps.apple.com/us/app/yaptotext/id6786382289 (checked 2026-10-03)
• https://superwhisper.com/docs/modes/switching-modes (checked 2026-10-03)
• https://superwhisper.com/docs/get-started/quickstart (checked 2026-10-06)
• https://superwhisper.com/docs/common-issues/app-wont-launch (checked 2026-10-06)
• https://superwhisper.com/docs/security/compliance (checked 2026-10-06)
• https://superwhisper.com/docs/security/sensitive-data (checked 2026-10-06)
• https://tryvoiceink.com (checked 2026-10-06)
• https://github.com/cjpais/Handy (checked 2026-10-05)
• https://openwhispr.com/pricing (checked 2026-10-05)
• https://spokenly.app/pricing (checked 2026-10-03)
• https://www.macwhisper.com (checked 2026-10-06)

Questions