Buzz: Popular open-source desktop app that transcribes and translates audio offline on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper. Notah: Notah is an AI meeting notes and transcription assistant built for Arabic and bilingual Arabic-English teams across the MENA region, turning conversations into searchable transcripts, summaries, and action items. 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 Notah when organizations needing arabic-dialect-aware transcription and summaries for zoom, teams, meet, or webex calls 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.
Notah is an AI meeting notes and transcription assistant built for Arabic and bilingual Arabic-English teams across the MENA region, turning conversations into searchable transcripts, summaries, and action items.
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
Notah is an AI meeting assistant developed specifically for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with a stated focus on Arabic and bilingual Arabic-English teams in markets such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Rather than treating Arabic as an afterthought, the product positions itself around regional Arabic dialect coverage and Arabic-English code-switching, the kind of mixed-language conversations common in MENA business settings. Notah records meetings and voice notes and turns them into searchable transcripts, AI-generated summaries, extracted action items, and visual mind maps, creating a searchable record of decisions and follow-ups. It works through a Chrome extension and a web app that runs in desktop and mobile browsers, and supports both online and in-person meetings. According to its own site, Notah integrates with common conferencing platforms including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Webex, plus the Saudi work platform Beem, and connects to Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook so it can join scheduled meetings. The company emphasizes regional considerations such as MENA data residency options and compliance with local data-protection expectations. Notah offers a free tier to get started, with paid plans available for additional capabilities. It is a live, operating product as of 2025/2026. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Notah is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Buzz | Notah |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Offline transcription and translation using OpenAI's Whisper | AI transcription of meetings and voice notes for Arabic, English, and mixed Arabic-English conversations |
| Standout feature | Real-time transcription from microphone input | AI-generated meeting summaries with extracted action items and key decisions |
| Team usage | Speaker identification and speech separation for noisy audio | Searchable transcripts and meeting archive |
| Integrations | Exports to TXT, SRT, and VTT | Mind map visualization of meeting content |
| Languages & capture | Watch folder for automatic transcription and a command-line interface | Chrome extension plus web app for desktop and mobile browsers |
| Best-fit workflow | GPU acceleration via CUDA, Apple Silicon, and Vulkan | Integrations with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Webex, and the Beem platform |
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.
Notah
Choose Notah if you need bilingual arabic-english business teams in the mena region capturing meeting notes and decisions — strengths include purpose-built for arabic dialects and arabic-english code-switching, a gap in many global tools.
Buzz
Notah
It depends on your workflow. Buzz is strong for transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline, while Notah is strong for bilingual arabic-english business teams in the mena region capturing meeting notes and decisions. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades and Notah is a free tier with paid upgrades. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
Often yes: teams combine tools when one handles capture and another handles analysis.
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