Buzz: Popular open-source desktop app that transcribes and translates audio offline on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper. Verbit: AI-plus-human transcription and captioning service for legal, education, media, corporate, and government settings. Which one wins depends on your platform mix, budget, and how hands-off you want notes to be.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Buzz when transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline matters most, and Verbit when producing accurate transcripts of legal proceedings and depositions 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.
AI-plus-human transcription and captioning service for legal, education, media, corporate, and government settings.
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
Verbit is a transcription and captioning provider that combines automatic speech recognition with professional human review to produce transcripts and captions for organizations that need high accuracy and compliance. Rather than being a self-serve consumer app, Verbit is built around regulated and professional sectors, including legal proceedings and courtrooms, higher education, media and broadcast, corporate events and meetings, and government. The platform offers both real-time transcription and captioning for live events and post-event transcripts for recorded audio and video, and it can deliver CART captioning, audio description, translation into many languages, and dubbing. For meetings, market research, and corporate events, Verbit captures spoken content and turns it into searchable transcripts, with AI-generated summaries and search to help users find key moments. Because accessibility compliance is central to its positioning, Verbit emphasizes adherence to standards such as ADA and FCC requirements and pairs its technology with human transcribers and dedicated support. Organizations choose Verbit when they need accuracy, accountability, and accessibility documentation beyond what fully automated tools typically provide. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Verbit is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Buzz | Verbit |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Offline transcription and translation using OpenAI's Whisper | AI transcription combined with professional human review |
| Standout feature | Real-time transcription from microphone input | Real-time captioning and CART for live events |
| Team usage | Speaker identification and speech separation for noisy audio | Recorded audio and video transcription |
| Integrations | Exports to TXT, SRT, and VTT | Translation, subtitling, and dubbing in many languages |
| Languages & capture | Watch folder for automatic transcription and a command-line interface | AI-generated summaries and transcript search |
| Best-fit workflow | GPU acceleration via CUDA, Apple Silicon, and Vulkan | Accessibility-compliance support (ADA, FCC standards) |
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.
Verbit
Choose Verbit if you need captioning university lectures and recorded course content for accessibility — strengths include human-in-the-loop review supports high accuracy for critical content.
Buzz
Verbit
It depends on your workflow. Buzz is strong for transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline, while Verbit is strong for captioning university lectures and recorded course content for accessibility. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades and Verbit is a free tier with paid upgrades. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
Sure. Running both makes sense when their strengths don't overlap and the budget allows.
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