Dovetail: Customer insights platform that centralizes interviews and feedback, with AI transcription, analysis, search, and a research repository. 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 Dovetail when transcribing and analyzing user research interviews matters most, and Handy when privacy-sensitive voice-to-text where audio must stay on-device matters most. Trial each on a few real meetings before you commit — the better fit usually shows fast.
Customer insights platform that centralizes interviews and feedback, with AI transcription, analysis, search, and a research repository.
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.
Dovetail is a customer insights and research platform that centralizes qualitative data from user interviews, sales calls, support tickets, and research studies into a single repository powered by AI. Teams can upload or import interview recordings and let Dovetail handle AI transcription, then analyze the material to turn raw feedback into structured intelligence. Its AI capabilities include automatic analysis, AI chat and search across customer data, AI dashboards that visualize trends alongside business metrics, and AI docs for creating shareable outputs. The research repository organizes studies, transcripts, tags, and highlights so insights remain searchable and reusable across projects, and highlight reels let teams clip and share video evidence of key moments. Dovetail supports transcription in multiple languages and includes redaction of sensitive information for privacy. It connects to other tools through integrations and an API so customer signals can flow across a team's stack. Used by product, design, research, and customer experience teams, Dovetail aims to replace assumption-based decisions with evidence drawn directly from customer conversations and feedback. 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
Dovetail 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 | Dovetail | Handy |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | AI transcription of interview and meeting recordings | Push-to-talk and toggle dictation modes with a configurable global keyboard shortcut |
| Standout feature | Automatic analysis that turns raw feedback into structured insights | Fully offline, on-device transcription with no cloud uploads |
| Team usage | AI chat and search across all customer data | Multiple local speech models including Whisper (GPU-accelerated) and Parakeet V3 (CPU, auto language detection) |
| Integrations | Research repository for transcripts, tags, and highlights | Silero Voice Activity Detection to filter silence and process only speech |
| Languages & capture | Highlight reels and video clips of key moments | Automatically pastes transcribed text into any active application text field |
| Best-fit workflow | AI dashboards, AI docs, and sensitive-information redaction | Cross-platform desktop app (macOS, Windows, Linux) built with Tauri |
Dovetail
Choose Dovetail if you need transcribing and analyzing user research interviews — strengths include centralizes interviews and feedback from many sources in one repository.
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.
Dovetail
Handy
It depends on your workflow. Dovetail is strong for transcribing and analyzing user research interviews, while Handy is strong for hands-free dictation into emails, documents, chat apps, and code editors. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Dovetail 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.
You can — some teams pair them when each covers a different part of the meeting workflow.
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