Buzz: Popular open-source desktop app that transcribes and translates audio offline on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper. Lingopal: Lingopal is an AI platform for real-time speech-to-speech translation, transcription, and captioning across live streams, meetings, and phone calls. The right pick comes down to team size, budget, and the workflows you want to automate.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Buzz when transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline matters most, and Lingopal when enabling multilingual meetings and esl conversations between teachers, students, and parents via rooms matters most. Run both through a week of actual calls to see which suits your workflow.
Popular open-source desktop app that transcribes and translates audio offline on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper.
Lingopal is an AI platform for real-time speech-to-speech translation, transcription, and captioning across live streams, meetings, and phone calls.
Buzz is a widely used open-source desktop application that transcribes and translates audio offline on the user's personal computer, powered by OpenAI's Whisper. It is MIT-licensed and actively maintained, with v1.4.4 released in March 2026, and it has grown a large community with roughly 19.7k GitHub stars. Buzz runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux, with installation options including Flatpak, Snap, and PyPI. It supports both importing existing audio and video files and real-time transcription from microphone input, and it can export results in formats such as TXT, SRT, and VTT for subtitling and documentation. The app includes an advanced transcript viewer with search and playback controls, a watch folder for automatically transcribing new files, and a command-line interface for automation. It offers GPU acceleration through CUDA for Nvidia cards, Apple Silicon support, and Vulkan for many other GPUs, which makes faster transcription practical even on laptops. Buzz also provides speaker identification and speech separation for noisy audio, plus a plugin system that adds capabilities like AI-generated summaries. Because all processing happens locally, recordings and transcripts remain on the user's machine rather than being uploaded to a cloud service. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Lingopal is an AI translation platform that converts spoken audio into other languages in real time while transcribing and captioning it. Its core technology performs speech-to-speech translation with voice cloning that preserves the original speaker's tone and emotion, alongside live captions and editable transcripts. Beyond its main use in live broadcast and streaming (sports, news, events), Lingopal offers a "Rooms" product that turns meetings into multilingual conversations with live voice translation for one-on-one and group settings, and a separate Call product (call.lingopal.ai) that translates phone calls in real time with live transcript and audio. The platform supports a large set of languages (over 100 across its products, with a smaller subset on the call product) and ingests common broadcast formats such as RTMP, HLS, SRT, and MP4, plus API-based workflows. Typical glass-to-glass latency is roughly 2.5 to 4 seconds. It targets broadcast teams, networks, educational institutions engaging ESL students and parents, faith organizations, and enterprises needing cross-language voice communication.
Best suited for
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Lingopal is a free tier with paid upgrades (paid). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Buzz | Lingopal |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Offline transcription and translation using OpenAI's Whisper | Real-time speech-to-speech translation across 100+ languages |
| Standout feature | Real-time transcription from microphone input | Voice cloning that preserves speaker tone and emotion |
| Team usage | Speaker identification and speech separation for noisy audio | Live captions and editable transcripts |
| Integrations | Exports to TXT, SRT, and VTT | Rooms product for multilingual meetings and group conversations |
| Languages & capture | Watch folder for automatic transcription and a command-line interface | Call product for real-time phone call translation |
| Best-fit workflow | GPU acceleration via CUDA, Apple Silicon, and Vulkan | Broadcast ingest support (RTMP, HLS, SRT, MP4) and API workflows |
Buzz
Choose Buzz if you need transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline — strengths include fully offline so audio and transcripts stay on the user's computer.
Lingopal
Choose Lingopal if you need translating live sports, news, and event broadcasts into multiple languages in real time — strengths include combines live translation, transcription, and captioning in one platform.
Buzz
Lingopal
It depends on your workflow. Buzz is strong for transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline, while Lingopal is strong for translating live sports, news, and event broadcasts into multiple languages in real time. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades and Lingopal 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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