Buzz: Popular open-source desktop app that transcribes and translates audio offline on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper. Spinach: AI meeting assistant that joins Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and Webex calls to record, transcribe, summarize, capture action items, and push updates to tools like Slack and Jira. Below, they line up on price, capture method, and how each fits a real meeting stack.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Buzz when transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline matters most, and Spinach when generating engineering standup and sprint updates and syncing tasks to jira or linear 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.
AI meeting assistant that joins Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and Webex calls to record, transcribe, summarize, capture action items, and push updates to tools like Slack and Jira.
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
Spinach (Spinach AI, by StayIn, Inc.) is an AI meeting assistant that joins video calls on Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Webex, and Slack Huddles to record, transcribe, and summarize discussions, with transcription support across roughly 100 languages. It captures meeting notes, decisions, and action items, then automates follow-up by drafting recaps and pushing updates into connected tools. Integrations include Slack, Jira, Asana, Linear, Notion, Trello, ClickUp, Monday.com, and Confluence, plus CRMs such as Salesforce, HubSpot, Attio, and Zoho. It offers role-specific outputs (for example PRD drafts for product managers and sprint planning support for engineering teams) and an "Ask Spinach" AI assistant for querying meeting content. The free Starter plan offers unlimited meeting recording and transcription with basic AI summaries and calendar/Slack integration (7-day recording retention), while advanced AI, Ask Spinach, and project-management/CRM integrations require a paid plan. Spinach maintains SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and HIPAA compliance.
Best suited for
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Spinach is from $0/mo (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Buzz | Spinach |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Offline transcription and translation using OpenAI's Whisper | Meeting recording & transcription |
| Standout feature | Real-time transcription from microphone input | AI summaries & action items |
| Team usage | Speaker identification and speech separation for noisy audio | Project tool & CRM integrations |
| Integrations | Exports to TXT, SRT, and VTT | Ask Spinach assistant |
| Languages & capture | Watch folder for automatic transcription and a command-line interface | 100-language support |
| Best-fit workflow | GPU acceleration via CUDA, Apple Silicon, and Vulkan | Meeting recording & transcription |
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.
Spinach
Choose Spinach if you need automatically taking and sharing notes, summaries, and action items from team meetings — strengths include free starter plan offers unlimited meeting recording, transcription, and basic ai summaries.
Buzz
Spinach
It depends on your workflow. Buzz is strong for transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline, while Spinach is strong for automatically taking and sharing notes, summaries, and action items from team meetings. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades and Spinach is from $0/mo. 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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