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. Symbl.ai: Developer conversation-intelligence API for transcribing and analyzing voice, video, and chat conversations. Which one wins depends on your platform mix, budget, and how hands-off you want notes to be.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Amical when dictating emails, messages, and documents hands-free with app-appropriate formatting matters most, and Symbl.ai when scoring and analyzing sales calls for coaching 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.
Developer conversation-intelligence API for transcribing and analyzing voice, video, and chat conversations.
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
Symbl.ai is a conversation-intelligence platform delivered as APIs and SDKs that lets developers transcribe and analyze voice, video, and chat conversations, including meetings and customer calls. Beyond raw transcription, Symbl.ai focuses on extracting structure and meaning from conversations: it can generate speaker-attributed transcripts, summaries, topics, action items, questions, and entities, and it can score calls and monitor sentiment in real time. It supports both real-time streaming over WebSocket for live meetings and processing of recorded audio and video, which makes it suitable for building meeting assistants as well as sales and support analytics tools. The platform is now part of Invoca and continues to operate, targeting enterprises that want to embed real-time AI agents and analytics into their own products rather than buy a finished end-user application. Typical implementations include adding live transcription and summaries to a conferencing tool, scoring and coaching sales calls, and surfacing compliance or quality signals from conversations. Because it is developer-first, using Symbl.ai requires engineering work to integrate its APIs into an existing application or workflow. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Amical is open source (open source); Symbl.ai is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Amical | Symbl.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Local speech-to-text transcription powered by OpenAI Whisper | Real-time streaming and recorded conversation transcription |
| Standout feature | On-device LLM processing via Ollama, with a cloud fallback option | Speaker diarization with speaker-attributed transcripts |
| Team usage | Context-aware formatting that adapts tone to the active app (email, chat, IDE, terminal) | Automatic summaries, topics, action items, and questions |
| Integrations | Multi-language and mixed-language dictation support | Real-time sentiment analysis and call scoring |
| Languages & capture | Custom vocabulary for domain-specific terms and configurable hotkeys | Entity recognition and conversation analytics |
| Best-fit workflow | Smart voice notes with summaries and task generation (in development) | Developer APIs and SDKs for voice, video, and chat |
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.
Symbl.ai
Choose Symbl.ai if you need embedding live transcription and summaries into a meeting tool — strengths include goes beyond transcription with rich conversation analytics.
Amical
Symbl.ai
It depends on your workflow. Amical is strong for dictating emails, messages, and documents hands-free with app-appropriate formatting, while Symbl.ai is strong for embedding live transcription and summaries into a meeting tool. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Amical is open source and Symbl.ai is a free tier with paid upgrades. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
Sure. Running both makes sense when their strengths don't overlap and the budget allows.
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