Buzz: Popular open-source desktop app that transcribes and translates audio offline on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper. Parabol: Free, open-source agile meeting tool for retrospectives, sprint poker, and standups with automated meeting summaries and AI topic grouping. Here's where each one pulls ahead on pricing, features, and the meetings it suits best.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Buzz when transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline matters most, and Parabol when facilitating sprint poker estimation sessions matters most. Trial each on a few real meetings before you commit — the better fit usually shows fast.
Popular open-source desktop app that transcribes and translates audio offline on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper.
Free, open-source agile meeting tool for retrospectives, sprint poker, and standups with automated meeting summaries and AI topic grouping.
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
Parabol is a free, open-source platform built for facilitating agile meetings, with a particular focus on sprint retrospectives alongside estimation (sprint poker) and team check-ins. Its retrospective experience follows a structured reflect, group, vote, discuss, and action workflow compatible with popular formats like Start/Stop/Continue, 4Ls, and Mad/Sad/Glad, plus custom templates. Facilitators get multiplayer drag-and-drop cards, live task editing, timers, dynamic agenda items, discussion threads, emoji reactions, and a large library of retrospective formats and icebreaker questions. At the end of each retro, Parabol automatically generates a meeting summary that rolls up notes and tasks, posts them to a team timeline, and delivers them to attendees via email or Slack so next steps are clear. Its AI capabilities include automatic naming of grouped card clusters and AI topic summaries to speed up synthesis during retros. Parabol integrates with Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Slack, and Mattermost, and because the codebase is publicly available on GitHub, teams can self-host or review how it works. It is used by hundreds of thousands of people across distributed and remote teams. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Parabol is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Buzz | Parabol |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Offline transcription and translation using OpenAI's Whisper | Structured retrospective workflow (reflect, group, vote, discuss, action) |
| Standout feature | Real-time transcription from microphone input | Automated meeting summaries delivered via email and Slack |
| Team usage | Speaker identification and speech separation for noisy audio | AI auto-naming of grouped cards and AI topic summaries |
| Integrations | Exports to TXT, SRT, and VTT | Sprint poker estimation and team standup/check-in templates |
| Languages & capture | Watch folder for automatic transcription and a command-line interface | Large library of retrospective formats and icebreaker questions |
| Best-fit workflow | GPU acceleration via CUDA, Apple Silicon, and Vulkan | Integrations with Jira, GitHub, GitLab, Slack, and Mattermost |
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.
Parabol
Choose Parabol if you need running sprint retrospectives for remote and distributed agile teams — strengths include free and open-source with the option to self-host.
Buzz
Parabol
It depends on your workflow. Buzz is strong for transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline, while Parabol is strong for running sprint retrospectives for remote and distributed agile teams. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades and Parabol is a free tier with paid upgrades. 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.
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