Cockatoo: AI transcription and note-taking service that records and transcribes meetings and lectures, then turns them into structured notes and summaries. MacParakeet: Free, open-source local voice app for Apple Silicon Macs offering on-device meeting recording, live transcripts, dictation, and file transcription powered by NVIDIA Parakeet. 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 Cockatoo when transcribing recorded meetings and interviews into searchable, structured notes matters most, and MacParakeet when system-wide dictation across applications for privacy-conscious users matters most. Run both through a week of actual calls to see which suits your workflow.
AI transcription and note-taking service that records and transcribes meetings and lectures, then turns them into structured notes and summaries.
Free, open-source local voice app for Apple Silicon Macs offering on-device meeting recording, live transcripts, dictation, and file transcription powered by NVIDIA Parakeet.
Cockatoo is an AI transcription and note-taking service available through the web and an iOS app that converts spoken audio and video into text and structured notes. Users can record meetings and lectures directly or upload existing audio and video files in a wide range of formats, after which Cockatoo automatically generates a transcript with punctuation and capitalization, identifies speakers, and produces summaries with key takeaways and action items. Beyond transcription, the product offers voice typing, an AI chat agent for asking questions about content, full document translation across many languages, and video transcription with subtitles and captions. Transcripts and notes can be searched and exported to formats including PDF, DOCX, TXT, SRT, and audio, and the app syncs to the cloud. Cockatoo supports more than one hundred languages and is designed for individuals and professionals who need affordable, accurate transcription of recordings such as meetings, interviews, lectures, podcasts, and other spoken content. The service is operated by Cockatoo Inc. and is actively running in 2025 and 2026 at cockatoo.com. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
MacParakeet is a free, open-source voice application for Apple Silicon Macs that runs speech recognition entirely on-device using NVIDIA's Parakeet TDT model via FluidAudio CoreML. Beyond system-wide dictation and file or URL transcription, it includes a meeting recording mode with live transcript preview, in-app note-taking, and export, plus meeting calendar integration through macOS EventKit that can show reminders and optionally auto-start recording. Because all speech recognition runs locally, the project states that audio remains on the device, with no cloud speech-to-text, no required accounts, and opt-out telemetry. It supports around 25 European languages with automatic detection and includes a text cleanup pipeline for filler removal, custom word replacements, and snippet expansion. Optional AI features such as summaries, chat, and text formatting can be enabled through cloud or local providers when the user chooses. Built with Swift and SwiftUI and distributed under the GPL-3.0 license, MacParakeet is actively maintained on GitHub and can be installed via a notarized DMG, a Homebrew cask, or built from source. It is positioned as a privacy-respecting, bot-free option for capturing meetings directly from the Mac. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Cockatoo is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); MacParakeet is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Cockatoo | MacParakeet |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Record or upload audio and video, then transcribe to structured text | On-device meeting recording with live transcript preview and note-taking |
| Standout feature | AI summaries with key takeaways and action items | Meeting calendar integration via macOS EventKit with optional auto-start |
| Team usage | Automatic speaker detection and punctuation | System-wide dictation with hotkey and push-to-talk modes |
| Integrations | AI chat agent and full document translation across 100+ languages | File and URL transcription on the device |
| Languages & capture | Video transcription with subtitles and captions | Local NVIDIA Parakeet TDT speech recognition with no cloud STT |
| Best-fit workflow | Export to PDF, DOCX, TXT, SRT, and audio with cloud sync | Text cleanup pipeline including filler removal and custom replacements |
Cockatoo
Choose Cockatoo if you need transcribing recorded meetings and interviews into searchable, structured notes — strengths include handles both live recording and bulk upload of existing audio and video files.
MacParakeet
Choose MacParakeet if you need capturing and transcribing meetings locally on a mac without a bot — strengths include free and open source with on-device speech recognition.
Cockatoo
MacParakeet
It depends on your workflow. Cockatoo is strong for transcribing recorded meetings and interviews into searchable, structured notes, while MacParakeet is strong for capturing and transcribing meetings locally on a mac without a bot. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Cockatoo is a free tier with paid upgrades and MacParakeet is a free tier with paid upgrades. 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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