Buzz: Popular open-source desktop app that transcribes and translates audio offline on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper. Scribewave: Scribewave is a European AI transcription platform that converts audio and video into editable text across dozens of languages and dialects, with speaker diarization and an AI assistant for summaries and notes. 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 Scribewave when universities and qualitative researchers transcribing recorded sessions with speaker labels matters most. Test each on your own meetings; the right choice tends to become obvious quickly.
Popular open-source desktop app that transcribes and translates audio offline on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper.
Scribewave is a European AI transcription platform that converts audio and video into editable text across dozens of languages and dialects, with speaker diarization and an AI assistant for summaries and 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
Scribewave is an AI transcription platform from Belgian company Quantum Noodle BV (Leuven/Beerzel) that automatically converts audio and video files into editable text. Users upload recordings, the AI transcribes them, and an integrated editor lets people review and correct the text while audio plays, with click-to-audio sync so clicking a word jumps to that moment in the recording. The platform supports a wide range of languages and dialects, positioning itself around linguistic diversity and regional and mixed-language speech rather than English alone. It includes speaker diarization, custom vocabularies to preserve names and jargon, batch uploads, and exports to formats such as Word, Google Docs, and subtitle files (SRT/VTT), plus the ability to render captioned videos. An AI assistant can answer questions about a transcript and generate summaries, chapters, and meeting notes with timecode references. Scribewave emphasizes data ownership, European servers, and GDPR compliance, and states it does not use customer content to train its models. It targets journalists, researchers, universities, and content creators.
Best suited for
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Scribewave is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Buzz | Scribewave |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Offline transcription and translation using OpenAI's Whisper | AI transcription of audio and video files into editable text across many languages and dialects |
| Standout feature | Real-time transcription from microphone input | Speaker diarization and speaker identification, including handling overlapping speech |
| Team usage | Speaker identification and speech separation for noisy audio | Synchronized editor with click-to-audio word sync for review and correction |
| Integrations | Exports to TXT, SRT, and VTT | AI assistant that answers questions and generates summaries, chapters, and meeting notes with timecodes |
| Languages & capture | Watch folder for automatic transcription and a command-line interface | Custom vocabularies to preserve names, jargon, and domain terms |
| Best-fit workflow | GPU acceleration via CUDA, Apple Silicon, and Vulkan | Exports to Word, Google Docs, PDF, and subtitle formats (SRT/VTT), plus captioned video output |
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.
Scribewave
Choose Scribewave if you need journalists and researchers transcribing and reviewing interviews across multiple languages — strengths include strong multilingual and dialect coverage with a focus on smaller and regional languages.
Buzz
Scribewave
It depends on your workflow. Buzz is strong for transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline, while Scribewave is strong for journalists and researchers transcribing and reviewing interviews across multiple languages. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades and Scribewave 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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