MacWhisper vs Superwhisper: Dictation, Files, and Meetings

MacWhisper and Superwhisper are the two names that come up first when a Mac user asks for Whisper transcription that runs on their own machine. Choosing between them used to be easy: MacWhisper transcribed files, Superwhisper typed what you said. That line has blurred. MacWhisper now does system-wide dictation and records meetings; Superwhisper now transcribes files and has a Meeting Mode. Read the two feature lists side by side and they look like the same app with different icons.

They aren’t. Comparing MacWhisper vs Superwhisper honestly means starting from what each one was built around, because that still decides which one feels right after a month of daily use. The details below come from each developer’s own pages, checked in October 2026. Both ship often, so confirm anything load-bearing before you buy.

The short version: MacWhisper is a file-first transcription workbench. It’s the stronger pick for interviews, recordings, subtitles, and anything you want to edit and export, and its Pro tier is a one-time license. Superwhisper is a dictation-first voice layer for your whole computer. It’s the stronger pick if you mostly talk instead of type, and it’s a subscription with a lifetime option. Both can record a call. Neither is built around the meeting recap, which is where a third kind of app comes in at the end.

In this guide11 sections

Two different starting points

MacWhisper starts from a file. Its core loop is to drag an audio or video file onto a window and get a transcript back, produced on the Mac by Whisper models or, on Pro, NVIDIA Parakeet. Most of what it added since extends that loop: batch transcription, watch folders, subtitle exports, custom export formats, a command-line interface. The transcript is the product, and the app gives you an editor to fix it, search it, and ship it.

Superwhisper starts from a hotkey. Press it, speak, and the text lands in whatever app has focus. Its modes, which reshape loose speech into an email, a message, or a note, are the heart of the product. File transcription and Meeting Mode were added around that core, and its pricing page lists them as features rather than the main event.

That split explains most of the differences below, and it’s the best predictor of which one you’ll still have open in six months.

Dictation: Superwhisper’s home turf

If the main reason you want either app is to stop typing, Superwhisper is the one built for it:

• Dictation in any app. The free tier includes voice to text that works anywhere you can type, with unlimited use of local Whisper models.
• Modes and prompts. Speak loosely and a mode formats the result for its context. Custom prompt control is in the free tier; Pro adds cloud and local AI models and your own API keys.
• Push to talk. Hold the key, speak, release. It’s tuned for short bursts: a reply, a commit message, a paragraph.
• Every device you own. Superwhisper runs on Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, and its FAQ says a Pro license activates on as many of your devices as you like.

MacWhisper has system-wide dictation too, pitched on its feature list as a replacement for Apple’s own, plus a spotlight-style window for quick transcriptions you paste elsewhere. Pro adds automatic spelling, punctuation, and grammar cleanup in dictation mode through an AI service you set up. It works. But dictation is a feature of MacWhisper; at Superwhisper it’s the whole product, and that shows in how much of the app is about shaping text as you speak.

File transcription: MacWhisper’s home turf

Reverse it for files. MacWhisper’s feature list reads like the toolkit of someone who transcribes a lot of recordings:

• Drag and drop anything. MP3, WAV, M4A, OGG, Opus, MOV, and MP4, plus Voice Memos dragged straight in.
• Exports for every destination. SRT and VTT subtitles, CSV, DOCX, PDF, Markdown, and HTML, with custom export formats on Pro.
• Volume tools on Pro. Batch transcription, watch folders that transcribe new files automatically, and a CLI for scripts.
• An editor built around the transcript. Playback synced to the text, search across every transcript, filler-word removal, playback from 0.5x to 3x.
• Speaker recognition on Pro. Local models on Apple silicon, or ElevenLabs and Deepgram in the cloud, plus diarization with NVIDIA’s Nemotron model.
• Integrations on Pro. Notion, Obsidian, Zapier, Make, n8n, and custom webhooks.

Superwhisper Pro transcribes audio and video files too, and for an occasional recording that’s enough. Its pages don’t describe the editing, subtitle, and automation tooling MacWhisper builds around a transcript, though. If transcripts are what you deliver, to an editor, a client, or a subtitle track, MacWhisper is the better workbench.

Meetings: both can record a call now

This is where the two apps have changed most, and it’s the part older comparisons get wrong. Both record a call from the Mac with no bot in the attendee list, by capturing the call’s system audio alongside your mic.

MacWhisper lists automatic meeting recording for Zoom, Teams, Webex, Discord, and more, plus system-audio recording. Pro adds realtime meeting transcription with speaker recognition on supported WhisperKit and Parakeet models. What comes out is what MacWhisper does best: a speaker-separated transcript you can edit, search, and export. For a summary, you run a prompt over it with the language model you connected.

Superwhisper’s Meeting Mode turns the conversation into meeting minutes: attendees, action items, key discussion points, and highlighted decisions. A mode can record system audio alongside your mic, so the far end of the call is in the recording. Speaker separation is off by default. Switch it on in Advanced Settings and the labels show up in History’s Segments view, but not in the AI summary or the action items.

So the split carries over. MacWhisper gives you the better transcript of a meeting; Superwhisper gives you faster notes. What neither is built around is the recap you send afterward and may later need to stand behind. Neither documents summary lines that play the matching moment of the audio (checked October 2026). MacWhisper’s synced playback works on the transcript, and its summaries can carry timestamps as text.

If you want the background on how bot-free capture works on macOS, and what a meeting app can and can’t see, the no-bot meeting recorder explainer walks through it.

Privacy: local transcription, configurable everything else

Both apps transcribe on the Mac by default, and that’s the shared reason people choose them over cloud services. Both also connect to the cloud when you ask them to, and the summary step is where that matters.

MacWhisper says all transcription with its local models happens on your device and no data leaves the machine. Pro also supports cloud transcription through OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Deepgram, Groq, Gladia, and custom Whisper servers. Prompts and summaries go to the model you configure: OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, xAI, DeepSeek, Azure, or OpenRouter with your own key, or a local model through Ollama.

Superwhisper says it works offline with its local voice models. Pro unlocks cloud and local AI models and your own API keys, and its FAQ notes that Intel Macs work best with cloud models, because offline models only run well on Apple silicon.

Neither is a privacy problem if you set it up deliberately. What matters is that “transcribes locally” and “summarizes locally” are separate settings in both apps. If a client call must not leave the Mac, check which model the summary step points at before you press record.

Pricing (checked October 2026)

MacWhisper has a free version with Whisper models, some of them fully available only on Pro. Pro is a one-time license, €65 for personal use from the developer’s Gumroad store, with volume pricing from 5 to 50 seats. The store page states it plainly: one-time payment, no subscription. Journalists, students, and non-profits can email for 25% off, and the developer offers a refund within 7 days.

Superwhisper has a free tier that covers dictation in any app, meeting recording and transcription, and unlimited use of Whisper models. Pro is $8.49 a month, with a yearly plan billed at two months free and a lifetime license. Students get 40% off, every plan has a 30-day refund window, and Enterprise is priced on request.

Structurally, MacWhisper is a tool you buy once, and Superwhisper is a subscription with a lifetime way out. A single year of Superwhisper Pro costs more than MacWhisper Pro does outright. If paying once is the deciding factor for you, our roundup of meeting transcription apps without a subscription puts both next to the other pay-once options.

Side by side

When the job is the meeting: Dictanta

Dictanta is the third option, for people whose real job is neither dictation nor file transcription. It’s the meeting, and the recap that comes out of it. Dictanta doesn’t type for you and doesn’t have MacWhisper’s editing workbench. It’s built around one loop instead:

• Capture from the menu bar. Click the icon and Dictanta spots the meeting app or browser, pre-selects “This meeting”, and shows what it will capture: the call’s audio plus your mic. It recognizes Zoom, Teams, Webex, Slack, and browser calls like Google Meet. The capture is audio only, scoped to the meeting app, with no bot in the call.
• Live, on-device transcription. Apple’s SpeechAnalyzer writes the transcript while you record, on the Mac. In MacStories’ independent testing (June 2025) it ran about 55% faster than Whisper Large V3 Turbo on the same Apple silicon.
• A recap with no model to configure. When you stop, Apple’s on-device Foundation Models start writing a TL;DR, action items with owners and due dates, decisions, and open questions. There’s no API key, no model picker, and no cloud endpoint to point it at by mistake. The audio never leaves the Mac.
• Summary lines you can check. Lines that show a timecode play the moment they came from: hover one on the Mac and the audio starts there, or click the pin to keep it playing. Lines Dictanta can’t source show no timecode instead of a guess.
• Standard exports. Markdown, PDF, Word, SRT, or JSON, and a clean recap you can share.

The tradeoffs, plainly: Dictanta doesn’t label speakers, so the transcript is one mixed stream. It has no dictation, no custom summary prompts, and no integrations. The app needs Apple Intelligence, supported and turned on, which on a Mac means Apple silicon (M1 or later) on macOS 26.4 or later, and summaries cover up to about 2.5 hours of audio per recording. Our Superwhisper alternative and MacWhisper alternative posts go deeper on each pairing.

The first 3 recordings are free with every feature, then it’s $9.99 a month, $79.99 a year, or $149.99 once, and one purchase covers Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Get Dictanta on the App Store and record your next call alongside whichever Whisper app you already use.

Which one should you pick?

Pick MacWhisper if your work starts from recordings: interviews, lectures, podcasts, video you need to subtitle. You want speaker labels, an editor, subtitle and document exports, batch jobs, and automation, and you’d rather pay once. Its meeting recording is a good bonus when you need a transcript of a call.

Pick Superwhisper if you want to talk instead of type, all day, in every app, on every platform you use, Windows and Android included. Meeting Mode covers the occasional call when quick minutes are enough. You’ll pay monthly, yearly, or once for a lifetime license.

Pick Dictanta if your recurring problem is meetings, and the thing you need afterward is a recap you can send and back up with the audio, written without your transcript going to any language model you didn’t choose. Plenty of people run one of the Whisper apps for dictation or files and Dictanta for calls; the jobs don’t overlap much.

Bottom line

MacWhisper vs Superwhisper is a file workbench against a dictation layer. Both now record meetings and both keep transcription on the Mac, so the deciding question is which loop you repeat most: transcribing recordings (MacWhisper) or talking text into apps (Superwhisper). On price, MacWhisper’s one-time Pro license is the easier buy. On meetings, both produce something useful, but neither is built around a recap you can verify against the audio. If that recap is the job, a meeting-first, on-device app is the better fit.

FAQ

Is MacWhisper or Superwhisper better for meetings?

Both can record a call on a Mac with no bot. MacWhisper is the stronger pick when the transcript is what you need: speaker recognition on Pro, subtitle exports, and a one-time license. Superwhisper’s Meeting Mode suits people who mostly dictate and want quick minutes on the side. If the deliverable is a recap you can check against the audio, a meeting-first app like Dictanta fits better than either.

Do MacWhisper and Superwhisper work offline?

Their local transcription does. Both run Whisper-family models on the Mac, and both also offer cloud models you can switch to. AI summaries and cleanup go through the language model you configure, which can be a cloud provider with your own API key or a local model, so check that setting if nothing should leave the Mac.

Which is cheaper, MacWhisper or Superwhisper?

For most people, MacWhisper. Its Pro license is a one-time €65 for personal use from the developer’s Gumroad store, while Superwhisper Pro is $8.49 a month, with yearly and lifetime options (both checked October 2026). Both have free tiers with local Whisper models. Dictanta is $9.99 a month, $79.99 a year, or $149.99 once.