Buzz: Popular open-source desktop app that transcribes and translates audio offline on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper. ownscribe: Local-first command-line tool that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings on macOS entirely on-device, with natural-language search across notes. 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 ownscribe when keeping fully on-device transcripts and summaries for privacy-sensitive discussions matters most. Try them side by side on real calls before deciding — needs vary by team.
Popular open-source desktop app that transcribes and translates audio offline on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper.
Local-first command-line tool that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings on macOS entirely on-device, with natural-language search across notes.
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
ownscribe is a local-first meeting transcription and summarization command-line tool that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings entirely on the user's own machine without sending data to external servers. It is MIT-licensed and actively maintained, with v0.12.0 released in June 2026, and is written primarily in Python with a Swift component for system audio capture. On macOS 14.2 and later it captures system audio through Core Audio, and it transcribes with WhisperX to produce word-level timestamps, with optional speaker diarization via PyAnnote. For summaries it ships with a built-in local model (Phi-4-mini) and can also connect to Ollama or OpenAI-compatible backends, offering multiple templates tailored to meetings, lectures, and brief summaries. A standout feature is its natural-language search: the ask command lets users query across their stored meeting notes to retrieve relevant information. Quality-of-life features include silence-based auto-stop so recordings end cleanly when a meeting goes quiet. Because it is a CLI distributed through GitHub and runs entirely on local hardware, ownscribe targets developers and privacy-focused users who prefer scriptable, terminal-driven workflows over a graphical meeting notetaker while keeping all audio and transcripts on-device. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); ownscribe is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Buzz | ownscribe |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Offline transcription and translation using OpenAI's Whisper | Local-first recording, transcription, and summarization via CLI |
| Standout feature | Real-time transcription from microphone input | System audio capture on macOS 14.2+ through Core Audio |
| Team usage | Speaker identification and speech separation for noisy audio | WhisperX transcription with word-level timestamps |
| Integrations | Exports to TXT, SRT, and VTT | Optional speaker diarization via PyAnnote |
| Languages & capture | Watch folder for automatic transcription and a command-line interface | Local summarization with a built-in Phi-4-mini model, plus Ollama and OpenAI-compatible backends |
| Best-fit workflow | GPU acceleration via CUDA, Apple Silicon, and Vulkan | Natural-language search across meeting notes with the ask command |
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.
ownscribe
Choose ownscribe if you need developers capturing and summarizing meetings from the terminal on a mac — strengths include runs entirely on-device with no data sent to external servers.
Buzz
ownscribe
It depends on your workflow. Buzz is strong for transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline, while ownscribe is strong for developers capturing and summarizing meetings from the terminal on a mac. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades and ownscribe is a free tier with paid upgrades. 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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