Amical: Amical is an open-source, local-first AI dictation and voice-notes app that transcribes speech to text on your own machine using Whisper and open-source LLMs. Parabol: Free, open-source agile meeting tool for retrospectives, sprint poker, and standups with automated meeting summaries and AI topic grouping. Here's where each one pulls ahead on pricing, features, and the meetings it suits best.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Amical when dictating emails, messages, and documents hands-free with app-appropriate formatting matters most, and Parabol when facilitating sprint poker estimation sessions matters most. Try them side by side on real calls before deciding — needs vary by team.
Amical is an open-source, local-first AI dictation and voice-notes app that transcribes speech to text on your own machine using Whisper and open-source LLMs.
Free, open-source agile meeting tool for retrospectives, sprint poker, and standups with automated meeting summaries and AI topic grouping.
Amical is an open-source, MIT-licensed AI dictation application that turns speech into formatted text directly on your device. It runs OpenAI's Whisper for speech recognition locally and uses open-source LLMs (via Ollama) for intelligent processing, so dictation can work offline once a local model is set up; for machines that can't handle local inference, it offers a cloud fallback. Built with Electron and TypeScript, it runs on Mac and Windows as a desktop app with a floating widget interface and configurable hotkeys. Its standout feature is context-aware formatting: it detects the active application and adapts tone and structure accordingly, producing professional text in email, casual phrasing in chat apps, or prompt and command-style output in IDEs and terminals. It supports many languages plus mixed-language dictation, and custom vocabulary for domain-specific terms. Beyond dictation, it is adding smart voice notes with summaries and task generation. It targets privacy-conscious writers, developers, and professionals wanting a free alternative to paid dictation tools.
Best suited for
Parabol is a free, open-source platform built for facilitating agile meetings, with a particular focus on sprint retrospectives alongside estimation (sprint poker) and team check-ins. Its retrospective experience follows a structured reflect, group, vote, discuss, and action workflow compatible with popular formats like Start/Stop/Continue, 4Ls, and Mad/Sad/Glad, plus custom templates. Facilitators get multiplayer drag-and-drop cards, live task editing, timers, dynamic agenda items, discussion threads, emoji reactions, and a large library of retrospective formats and icebreaker questions. At the end of each retro, Parabol automatically generates a meeting summary that rolls up notes and tasks, posts them to a team timeline, and delivers them to attendees via email or Slack so next steps are clear. Its AI capabilities include automatic naming of grouped card clusters and AI topic summaries to speed up synthesis during retros. Parabol integrates with Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Slack, and Mattermost, and because the codebase is publicly available on GitHub, teams can self-host or review how it works. It is used by hundreds of thousands of people across distributed and remote teams. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Amical is open source (open source); Parabol is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Amical | Parabol |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Local speech-to-text transcription powered by OpenAI Whisper | Structured retrospective workflow (reflect, group, vote, discuss, action) |
| Standout feature | On-device LLM processing via Ollama, with a cloud fallback option | Automated meeting summaries delivered via email and Slack |
| Team usage | Context-aware formatting that adapts tone to the active app (email, chat, IDE, terminal) | AI auto-naming of grouped cards and AI topic summaries |
| Integrations | Multi-language and mixed-language dictation support | Sprint poker estimation and team standup/check-in templates |
| Languages & capture | Custom vocabulary for domain-specific terms and configurable hotkeys | Large library of retrospective formats and icebreaker questions |
| Best-fit workflow | Smart voice notes with summaries and task generation (in development) | Integrations with Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Slack, and Mattermost |
Amical
Choose Amical if you need dictating emails, messages, and documents hands-free with app-appropriate formatting — strengths include fully open source (mit) and actively maintained with frequent releases.
Parabol
Choose Parabol if you need running sprint retrospectives for remote and distributed agile teams — strengths include free and open-source with the option to self-host.
Amical
Parabol
It depends on your workflow. Amical is strong for dictating emails, messages, and documents hands-free with app-appropriate formatting, while Parabol is strong for running sprint retrospectives for remote and distributed agile teams. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Amical is open source and Parabol is a free tier with paid upgrades. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
You can — some teams pair them when each covers a different part of the meeting workflow.
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