A Superwhisper alternative for dictation and calls
Superwhisper is a polished dictation app. It runs Whisper on your Mac, rewrites what you say with custom modes, and records meetings without a bot.
I wanted fast, simple and robust dictation and transcription for calls that runs on my Mac without sending data to the cloud. That became Dictate. It does fewer things, for a one-time price: it's for what you say and the calls you're on, and your agent can use both.
Dictate next to Superwhisper
| Dictate | Superwhisper | |
|---|---|---|
| Your audio goes to | Your Mac | Your Mac with a local model, or the cloud with a cloud model or most AI modes |
| Price | Free forever for the first 50 early access users. After that, a lifetime license is $49. | Free with local models, or Pro at $84.99 a year or $249.99 once |
| Call transcript, no bot | Yes | Yes, on Mac |
| Who said what | Me and Call, from separate recordings of your mic and the call | Speakers labeled in the transcript |
| Your agents can read it | Yes: dictations and calls, through a server on your Mac | Not in its documentation |
| Works on | Apple silicon Macs with macOS 15 or later | Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android |
Superwhisper's column comes from its home page, its documentation and its App Store listing, as of 14 November 2026.
What Dictate does differently
- Your side of a call is always labeled Me. Dictate records your microphone and the call's audio separately, so it never has to guess which voice is yours.
- Your agent can work with all of it. Claude Code or any MCP client can search your dictations and calls, and follow a call while it happens.
- Unsure parts get a second try. Whisper scores how sure it is of each part, and Dictate decodes the unsure ones again and keeps the better version.
- You can see it's working. A level meter shows the mic hears you, and your words appear as you talk. Only Dictate's own shortcut stops a recording, so a stray Escape never loses what you said.
- Audio doesn't pile up. By default Dictate deletes audio after 7 days and transcripts after 30. You can have the audio deleted as soon as it's transcribed.
Where Superwhisper is the better pick
Superwhisper runs on your iPhone, Windows PC and Android phone as well as your Mac. Its modes rewrite what you say into an email or a message, you can choose cloud models for noisy audio, and it runs on Intel Macs with those cloud models. If that's what you need, it's a great choice.