Buzz: Popular open-source desktop app that transcribes and translates audio offline on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper. StreamAlive: Chat-powered live audience engagement tool for town halls and all-hands meetings, with AI question curation, polls, word clouds, and chat summaries. 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 StreamAlive when collecting live anonymous polls and sentiment during large broadcasts 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.
Chat-powered live audience engagement tool for town halls and all-hands meetings, with AI question curation, polls, word clouds, and chat summaries.
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
StreamAlive is a live audience engagement platform built to make large, broadcast-style meetings such as company town halls and all-hands sessions interactive. Instead of requiring attendees to scan QR codes or open separate apps, it turns the existing meeting chat into a participation channel, working across Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, YouTube Live, and in-person presentations. Presenters can run multiple poll types (open-ended and multiple-choice power polls, rating polls), generate live word clouds from chat responses, drop pins on interactive maps, spin selection wheels, and collect emoji reactions, all rendered visually on screen in real time. For town halls and all-hands, its question management is a core draw: StreamAlive automatically detects and curates audience questions out of the chat stream so moderators do not miss them. Its AI layer, branded StreamAlive AI, can generate ready-to-use interactions from an uploaded presentation or topic description, summarize chat discussions with insights and notable quotes, and produce visualizations based on what the audience types. The product is delivered as a browser-based SaaS tool aimed at presenters who want higher engagement and clearer feedback during company-wide and webinar-style meetings. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); StreamAlive is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Buzz | StreamAlive |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Offline transcription and translation using OpenAI's Whisper | Chat-based audience participation across Zoom, Teams, Meet, and YouTube Live |
| Standout feature | Real-time transcription from microphone input | AI-powered automatic detection and curation of audience questions |
| Team usage | Speaker identification and speech separation for noisy audio | AI generation of ready-to-use polls and interactions from a presentation or topic |
| Integrations | Exports to TXT, SRT, and VTT | AI chat summaries with insights and notable quotes |
| Languages & capture | Watch folder for automatic transcription and a command-line interface | Live polls, word clouds, interactive maps, spinner wheels, and emoji reactions |
| Best-fit workflow | GPU acceleration via CUDA, Apple Silicon, and Vulkan | Post-session analytics and reports |
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.
StreamAlive
Choose StreamAlive if you need running interactive q&a during company all-hands and town hall meetings — strengths include designed specifically for engaging large town hall and all-hands audiences.
Buzz
StreamAlive
It depends on your workflow. Buzz is strong for transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline, while StreamAlive is strong for running interactive q&a during company all-hands and town hall meetings. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades and StreamAlive 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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