Buzz: Popular open-source desktop app that transcribes and translates audio offline on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper. Webex AI Assistant: The AI assistant built into the Cisco Webex Suite, providing real-time transcription, automatic meeting summaries, highlights, and action items across Webex meetings, messaging, and calling. 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 Webex AI Assistant when catching up on a meeting you joined late or missed by asking the assistant what was discussed 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.
The AI assistant built into the Cisco Webex Suite, providing real-time transcription, automatic meeting summaries, highlights, and action items across Webex meetings, messaging, and calling.
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
Webex AI Assistant (the Cisco AI Assistant) is built into the Webex Suite, adding AI features to Webex Meetings, Messaging, and Calling rather than working as a standalone app for other platforms. In meetings it provides real-time transcription, automatic meeting summaries, highlights, notes, and action item tracking, and it lets participants ask questions about what was discussed without interrupting the meeting. It can generate post-meeting summaries within recordings, including transcripts, notes, action items, and chapters, and it offers message summaries in Webex messaging. The AI Assistant is included on paid Webex plans (Webex Meet, Webex Suite, and Webex Enterprise); the free Webex plan does not include it. Paid plans add AI-powered cloud recording (10 GB on Webex Meet), closed captions, and longer meetings. Real-time translation to 100+ languages is available as a separate paid add-on.
Best suited for
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Webex AI Assistant is from $12/mo (paid). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Buzz | Webex AI Assistant |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Offline transcription and translation using OpenAI's Whisper | Meeting summaries |
| Standout feature | Real-time transcription from microphone input | Real-time transcription |
| Team usage | Speaker identification and speech separation for noisy audio | Highlights & action items |
| Integrations | Exports to TXT, SRT, and VTT | In-meeting Q&A |
| Languages & capture | Watch folder for automatic transcription and a command-line interface | Message summaries |
| Best-fit workflow | GPU acceleration via CUDA, Apple Silicon, and Vulkan | Meeting summaries |
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.
Webex AI Assistant
Choose Webex AI Assistant if you need automatically capturing transcripts, summaries, and action items from webex meetings — strengths include built directly into webex, so transcription and summaries work without a third-party bot joining the call.
Buzz
Webex AI Assistant
It depends on your workflow. Buzz is strong for transcribing recorded meetings, interviews, podcasts, or lectures offline, while Webex AI Assistant is strong for automatically capturing transcripts, summaries, and action items from webex meetings. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Buzz is a free tier with paid upgrades and Webex AI Assistant is from $12/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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