Bold: Bot-free AI notetaker by Bold App Studios that records meetings on-device, transcribes with speaker detection, and writes summaries with action items. Handy: Handy is a free, open-source, cross-platform push-to-talk app that transcribes your speech to text completely offline and pastes it into any text field. 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 Bold when capturing in-person meetings without sending a meeting bot matters most, and Handy when privacy-sensitive voice-to-text where audio must stay on-device matters most. Run both through a week of actual calls to see which suits your workflow.
Bot-free AI notetaker by Bold App Studios that records meetings on-device, transcribes with speaker detection, and writes summaries with action items.
Handy is a free, open-source, cross-platform push-to-talk app that transcribes your speech to text completely offline and pastes it into any text field.
Bold (Bold: AI Meeting Note Taker) is an AI meeting assistant from Bold App Studios that records conversations directly on the user's device and then automatically transcribes and summarizes them rather than sending a bot into the call. It offers one-tap recording with real-time transcription, can capture audio in the background whether the screen is on or off, and supports uploading existing audio files for transcription. The app performs speaker detection and diarization across multiple participants, and its AI writes concise summaries that surface action items, decisions, and key insights. Notes are searchable and can be filtered by date, speaker, topic, or keyword, and recordings include replay with smart navigation. Bold supports shareable web links and integrations including Google Meet calendar connection, Notion, Slack, email, and PDF export, with customizable templates for organizing notes. The vendor states the app supports several languages including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Japanese, and offers end-to-end encryption and privacy controls. Bold is available across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro, with a free tier plus premium subscription options, and is actively maintained in 2025/2026. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Handy is a free, open-source desktop application that turns your voice into text completely offline, with no audio ever leaving your computer. You press a configurable keyboard shortcut, speak, and release (push-to-talk), or use a toggle mode to start and stop; Handy transcribes what you said and automatically pastes the result into whatever text field is active. Because it runs entirely on-device, it is built for privacy-conscious users who want dictation without cloud uploads or subscriptions. Under the hood it is built with Tauri (a Rust backend with a React/TypeScript frontend) and supports multiple local speech-recognition models, including OpenAI's Whisper variants with GPU acceleration and the CPU-friendly Parakeet V3 model with automatic language detection. Silero Voice Activity Detection filters out silence so only speech is processed. Handy runs on macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon), Windows, and Linux, and is released under the MIT license. It positions itself as an accessible, extensible alternative to paid dictation tools, and is best suited for hands-free typing rather than recording multi-party meetings.
Best suited for
Bold is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Handy is open source (open source). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Bold | Handy |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | One-tap on-device recording with real-time transcription | Push-to-talk and toggle dictation modes with a configurable global keyboard shortcut |
| Standout feature | Speaker detection and diarization for multiple participants | Fully offline, on-device transcription with no cloud uploads |
| Team usage | AI summaries highlighting action items and decisions | Multiple local speech models including Whisper (GPU-accelerated) and Parakeet V3 (CPU, auto language detection) |
| Integrations | Background recording with screen on or off, plus audio-file upload | Silero Voice Activity Detection to filter silence and process only speech |
| Languages & capture | Searchable, filterable notes with shareable web links | Automatically pastes transcribed text into any active application text field |
| Best-fit workflow | Integrations with Google Meet, Notion, Slack, email, and PDF export | Cross-platform desktop app (macOS, Windows, Linux) built with Tauri |
Bold
Choose Bold if you need capturing in-person meetings without sending a meeting bot — strengths include bot-free, on-device capture for in-person and virtual meetings.
Handy
Choose Handy if you need hands-free dictation into emails, documents, chat apps, and code editors — strengths include completely free, open-source (mit) with no subscription or paywall.
Bold
Handy
It depends on your workflow. Bold is strong for capturing in-person meetings without sending a meeting bot, while Handy is strong for hands-free dictation into emails, documents, chat apps, and code editors. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Bold is a free tier with paid upgrades and Handy is open source. 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.
More head-to-head comparisons involving Bold and Handy.
Bold: Bot-free AI notetaker by Bold App Studios that records meetings on-device, transcribes with speaker detection, and writes summaries with action items. Boostlingo: Language access platform whose AI Pro engine delivers live AI captioning, translation, and transcription for meetings, webinars, and events. The right pick comes down to team size, budget, and the workflows you want to automate.
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