BuildBetter: A no-bot meeting recorder (BB Recorder) that captures and processes calls locally on Mac, with optional cloud upload for team collaboration. 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. This comparison weighs them on pricing, features, and everyday workflow fit.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist BuildBetter when product teams aggregating customer-call insights into jira, linear, or notion 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.
A no-bot meeting recorder (BB Recorder) that captures and processes calls locally on Mac, with optional cloud upload for team collaboration.
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.
BuildBetter offers BB Recorder, a no-bot meeting recorder that captures meetings by recording system audio directly on the device rather than sending a bot into the call. On macOS it can run as a menu-bar (notch-style) recorder, a floating overlay, or a full-window app, and it includes smart auto-detection that begins recording when it detects a call. Recording, transcription, summarization, and even a live AI assistant for asking questions during a call can run locally using on-device models, so notes and transcripts can stay on the user's machine. Users can optionally upload recordings to BuildBetter's cloud for enhanced transcripts with speaker diarization, AI-powered summaries, and team collaboration. The broader BuildBetter platform is oriented toward product teams and customer-facing roles, helping aggregate insights across many calls and route them into tools such as Jira, Linear, and Notion. BB Recorder is available on macOS as well as iOS and Android. It is aimed at product, sales, customer success, and support teams that want privacy-conscious local capture with the option to escalate to cloud-based team features. 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
BuildBetter 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 | BuildBetter | Handy |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | No-bot recording that captures system audio locally | Push-to-talk and toggle dictation modes with a configurable global keyboard shortcut |
| Standout feature | macOS recorder with menu-bar, floating overlay, and full-window modes | Fully offline, on-device transcription with no cloud uploads |
| Team usage | Smart auto-detection that starts recording when a call is detected | Multiple local speech models including Whisper (GPU-accelerated) and Parakeet V3 (CPU, auto language detection) |
| Integrations | Local transcription, summarization, and a live AI assistant | Silero Voice Activity Detection to filter silence and process only speech |
| Languages & capture | Optional cloud upload for speaker diarization and team collaboration | Automatically pastes transcribed text into any active application text field |
| Best-fit workflow | Routes insights into tools like Jira, Linear, and Notion | Cross-platform desktop app (macOS, Windows, Linux) built with Tauri |
BuildBetter
Choose BuildBetter if you need product teams aggregating customer-call insights into jira, linear, or notion — strengths include local processing keeps recordings and notes on the device by default.
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.
BuildBetter
Handy
It depends on your workflow. BuildBetter is strong for product teams aggregating customer-call insights into jira, linear, or notion, while Handy is strong for hands-free dictation into emails, documents, chat apps, and code editors. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
BuildBetter 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.
Yes. Many teams run more than one meeting assistant when the workflows are complementary.
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