Cresta: Enterprise contact-center AI platform combining real-time agent assist, autonomous AI agents, and conversation intelligence. Handy: Handy is a free, open-source, cross-platform push-to-talk app that transcribes your speech to text completely offline and pastes it into any text field. Here's where each one pulls ahead on pricing, features, and the meetings it suits best.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Cresta when assisting contact-center agents in real time during customer conversations matters most, and Handy when privacy-sensitive voice-to-text where audio must stay on-device matters most. Test each on your own meetings; the right choice tends to become obvious quickly.
Enterprise contact-center AI platform combining real-time agent assist, autonomous AI agents, and conversation intelligence.
Handy is a free, open-source, cross-platform push-to-talk app that transcribes your speech to text completely offline and pastes it into any text field.
Cresta is an enterprise customer-experience AI platform that unifies human and AI agents across voice and digital channels. It captures conversations through integrations with major contact-center systems such as Genesys, NICE, Salesforce, Twilio, and Amazon Connect, then analyzes those interactions at scale to surface behavioral insights and deliver real-time guidance. Its Agent Assist listens to live conversations and provides agents with in-the-moment suggestions, knowledge, and next-best actions, while a Knowledge Agent proactively surfaces context-aware answers without manual prompting. Cresta's conversation intelligence analyzes 100% of interactions to identify the behaviors that drive outcomes, and its automated quality management scores conversations across the board so supervisors gain visibility without manual sampling. The platform also offers autonomous AI agents that can resolve customer conversations end to end, plus an Agent Operations Center that gives supervisors real-time visibility and intervention tools across both human and AI-led conversations. Cresta is built for large enterprise contact centers in industries such as financial services, travel and hospitality, telecommunications, insurance, and healthcare that need real-time assistance, coaching, and analytics at scale. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Handy is a free, open-source desktop application that turns your voice into text completely offline, with no audio ever leaving your computer. You press a configurable keyboard shortcut, speak, and release (push-to-talk), or use a toggle mode to start and stop; Handy transcribes what you said and automatically pastes the result into whatever text field is active. Because it runs entirely on-device, it is built for privacy-conscious users who want dictation without cloud uploads or subscriptions. Under the hood it is built with Tauri (a Rust backend with a React/TypeScript frontend) and supports multiple local speech-recognition models, including OpenAI's Whisper variants with GPU acceleration and the CPU-friendly Parakeet V3 model with automatic language detection. Silero Voice Activity Detection filters out silence so only speech is processed. Handy runs on macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon), Windows, and Linux, and is released under the MIT license. It positions itself as an accessible, extensible alternative to paid dictation tools, and is best suited for hands-free typing rather than recording multi-party meetings.
Best suited for
Cresta is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Handy is open source (open source). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Cresta | Handy |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Real-time Agent Assist with live suggestions and knowledge | Push-to-talk and toggle dictation modes with a configurable global keyboard shortcut |
| Standout feature | Conversation intelligence analyzing 100% of interactions | Fully offline, on-device transcription with no cloud uploads |
| Team usage | Automated quality management and scoring across all calls | Multiple local speech models including Whisper (GPU-accelerated) and Parakeet V3 (CPU, auto language detection) |
| Integrations | Knowledge Agent that proactively surfaces context-aware answers | Silero Voice Activity Detection to filter silence and process only speech |
| Languages & capture | Autonomous AI agents for end-to-end conversation resolution | Automatically pastes transcribed text into any active application text field |
| Best-fit workflow | Integrations with Genesys, NICE, Salesforce, Twilio, and Amazon Connect | Cross-platform desktop app (macOS, Windows, Linux) built with Tauri |
Cresta
Choose Cresta if you need assisting contact-center agents in real time during customer conversations — strengths include delivers real-time guidance during live conversations, not just post-call review.
Handy
Choose Handy if you need hands-free dictation into emails, documents, chat apps, and code editors — strengths include completely free, open-source (mit) with no subscription or paywall.
Cresta
Handy
It depends on your workflow. Cresta is strong for assisting contact-center agents in real time during customer conversations, while Handy is strong for hands-free dictation into emails, documents, chat apps, and code editors. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Cresta is a free tier with paid upgrades and Handy is open source. 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.
More head-to-head comparisons involving Cresta and Handy.
Cresta: Enterprise contact-center AI platform combining real-time agent assist, autonomous AI agents, and conversation intelligence. Cuebo: AI sales coaching platform with a roleplay arena of video-avatar buyers, automated course generation, and call analysis. We compare them on cost, capture approach, and day-to-day fit so you can choose faster.
Cresta: Enterprise contact-center AI platform combining real-time agent assist, autonomous AI agents, and conversation intelligence. Daglo: Korean all-in-one AI notetaker by Action Power that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings and lectures, with strong Korean recognition and post-recording tools. The right pick comes down to team size, budget, and the workflows you want to automate.
Cresta: Enterprise contact-center AI platform combining real-time agent assist, autonomous AI agents, and conversation intelligence. Daisy: Local-first, open-source macOS meeting recorder and AI notes app that transcribes on-device and exposes meetings to AI tools through a local MCP server. Which one wins depends on your platform mix, budget, and how hands-off you want notes to be.
Cresta: Enterprise contact-center AI platform combining real-time agent assist, autonomous AI agents, and conversation intelligence. Deepting: Real-time AI transcription and meeting summary app for meetings, interviews, and lectures across mobile and web. Here's where each one pulls ahead on pricing, features, and the meetings it suits best.
Cresta: Enterprise contact-center AI platform combining real-time agent assist, autonomous AI agents, and conversation intelligence. Demodesk: AI sales meeting platform that records, transcribes, coaches reps, and automates note-taking, follow-ups, and CRM updates. Here's where each one pulls ahead on pricing, features, and the meetings it suits best.
Cresta: Enterprise contact-center AI platform combining real-time agent assist, autonomous AI agents, and conversation intelligence. DepoDash: Cloud court-reporting platform delivering verbatim deposition transcription via AI, stenographers, or voice writers. We compare them on cost, capture approach, and day-to-day fit so you can choose faster.
Cresta: Enterprise contact-center AI platform combining real-time agent assist, autonomous AI agents, and conversation intelligence. Deposely: AI deposition platform for litigators covering prep, real-time insights, and transcript review and summaries. Which one wins depends on your platform mix, budget, and how hands-off you want notes to be.
Cresta: Enterprise contact-center AI platform combining real-time agent assist, autonomous AI agents, and conversation intelligence. Descript: Video/podcast editor with transcription and meeting recording This comparison weighs them on pricing, features, and everyday workflow fit.
Cresta: Enterprise contact-center AI platform combining real-time agent assist, autonomous AI agents, and conversation intelligence. Dialpad: AI-powered communications platform with a sales dialer that provides real-time transcription, live coaching cards, and post-call summaries. The right pick comes down to team size, budget, and the workflows you want to automate.
Cresta: Enterprise contact-center AI platform combining real-time agent assist, autonomous AI agents, and conversation intelligence. Dicte: Privacy-focused AI meeting assistant that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings and voice notes on mobile and desktop. Which one wins depends on your platform mix, budget, and how hands-off you want notes to be.
Cresta: Enterprise contact-center AI platform combining real-time agent assist, autonomous AI agents, and conversation intelligence. Dovetail: Customer insights platform that centralizes interviews and feedback, with AI transcription, analysis, search, and a research repository. We compare them on cost, capture approach, and day-to-day fit so you can choose faster.
Cresta: Enterprise contact-center AI platform combining real-time agent assist, autonomous AI agents, and conversation intelligence. Dscout: Experience research platform for moderated interviews, diary studies, and usability testing with AI transcription, themes, and analysis. Here's where each one pulls ahead on pricing, features, and the meetings it suits best.