Buzz: Popular open-source desktop app that transcribes and translates audio offline on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper. Pluely: A lightweight open-source desktop AI meeting assistant that captures system audio for live transcription and on-call answers without joining as a visible bot. This comparison weighs them on pricing, features, and everyday workflow fit.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Buzz when transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline matters most, and Pluely when running a privacy-conscious, locally processed meeting helper via ollama 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.
A lightweight open-source desktop AI meeting assistant that captures system audio for live transcription and on-call answers without joining as a visible bot.
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
Pluely is an open-source AI meeting assistant created by independent developer Srikanthnani and released in 2025 as a privacy-first, bot-free alternative to commercial in-meeting copilots. Built with Tauri, the app is roughly 10MB and launches quickly, running as an always-on-top overlay on macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel), Windows, and Linux. Rather than sending a participant into your call, Pluely captures system audio and microphone input directly on your device, converts speech to text, and can surface AI responses and notes during a meeting, interview, or presentation. It is bring-your-own-key, so users connect their own provider credentials; it supports a wide range of large language models, including OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Grok, Mistral, Cohere, Ollama, and custom endpoints, alongside multiple speech-to-text engines such as Whisper, Deepgram, ElevenLabs, Groq, and Azure. Because it is GPL-licensed and fully inspectable, teams can audit or modify the code, and local model options via Ollama allow processing to stay on the machine. As an indie project it depends on external API keys for most capabilities and is still maturing. Confirm features and any usage policies on the official site. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Pluely is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Buzz | Pluely |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Offline transcription and translation using OpenAI's Whisper | Bot-free capture of system audio and microphone for live transcription |
| Standout feature | Real-time transcription from microphone input | Always-on-top overlay app for macOS, Windows, and Linux |
| Team usage | Speaker identification and speech separation for noisy audio | Bring-your-own-key support for many LLMs (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Grok, Mistral, Cohere, Ollama, custom) |
| Integrations | Exports to TXT, SRT, and VTT | Multiple speech-to-text providers (Whisper, Deepgram, ElevenLabs, Groq, Azure, and others) |
| Languages & capture | Watch folder for automatic transcription and a command-line interface | Lightweight (~10MB) and fast to launch |
| Best-fit workflow | GPU acceleration via CUDA, Apple Silicon, and Vulkan | Open source under GPL with optional local processing via Ollama |
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.
Pluely
Choose Pluely if you need getting live transcription and ai assistance during meetings without a visible bot in the call — strengths include free and open source with fully inspectable code.
Buzz
Pluely
It depends on your workflow. Buzz is strong for transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline, while Pluely is strong for getting live transcription and ai assistance during meetings without a visible bot in the call. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades and Pluely 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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