Comparison · Checked
A Wispr Flow alternative that keeps your voice on your device.
Wispr Flow is a popular dictation app that sends your speech to its servers to turn it into text. Yap does the recognition on your Mac, PC or phone instead. Here’s how they compare, and when Wispr Flow is still the better pick.
The main difference
Where your speech goes.
Wispr Flow: in the cloud
- “Transcription always occurs on the cloud.” It says this is the best way to give accurate, low-latency transcription.
- It uses the name of the app you’re dictating into, and the text around your cursor, to format and edit what you say.
- Settings let you opt out of your data being used to train models, and choose whether your transcripts, audio and history are stored on its servers. The text models learn from is also written and judged by paid writers and editors, and AITraining.jobs, a site our company also owns, lists AI training jobs for writers and editors.
Source: Wispr Flow’s Data Controls page, read Oct 17, 2026.
Yap: on your Mac
- Speech recognition runs on your Mac. Audio is not uploaded to a transcription service.
- Finished text goes to your cursor and into a local History you can copy from or delete.
- After setup, dictation works offline for up to 24 hours after each successful access check. How offline dictation works.
Details: our privacy policy.
Wispr Flow and Yap, side by side.
| Feature | Wispr Flow | Yap |
|---|---|---|
| Where speech is recognized | On Wispr Flow’s servers. Its data controls page says: “Transcription always occurs on the cloud.” | On your device: Mac, Windows PC or phone. Audio is not uploaded. |
| Without internet | Transcription needs a connection, because it happens in the cloud. | Works offline for up to 24 hours after each successful access check. The first launch needs internet. |
| Price | Free plan with 2,000 words a week on desktop. Pro is $15 USD a month, or $12 USD a month billed annually ($144 USD a year). | $6.90 USD a month or $69 USD a year, after 3 free days with a free account and no card, and a 10-day trial with a card. No permanent free plan. |
| Devices | Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android. | Apple Silicon Macs (M1 or later) with macOS 13 or later, Windows 10 and 11 (64-bit), iPhone, and Android phones (Android 10 or later, 3 GB of memory or more), on one subscription. No Intel Mac version. |
| Languages | 100+ languages. | Detected from your voice for each recording. On macOS 14 or later, the upgraded engine covers 25 languages; others use compatible local recognition. |
| Tidying and editing | Formats text for the app you’re in (for example, formal in email), edits by voice with Command Mode, and keeps a dictionary and snippets. | Removes “um” and “uh” in English, capitalizes sentences and adds a closing period. Spoken commands like “new paragraph” are optional. No AI rewriting. |
| Speed | Says its app works “within 700ms of when they stop speaking” (Wispr Flow engineering blog, September 2025). | A median of 0.56 seconds from releasing the key to finished text on an Apple M5 Pro Mac, about 1.4 seconds on an Apple M2 Pro (our measurement). |
| Your history | A Dictation Cloud Storage setting controls whether Wispr Flow stores your transcripts, audio and dictation history on its servers. | Kept in a local History on your device, where you can copy or delete it. Up to 5 minutes per recording. |
Wispr Flow details from its pricing and data controls pages and engineering blog, read Oct 17, 2026. We did not time Wispr Flow; how we measured Yap. Yap details reflect the current Mac app.
Being fair
When Wispr Flow is the better choice.
Yap does one thing: fast, private dictation that stays on your device. If one of these matters more to you, Wispr Flow fits better.
- You want to pay nothing. Its free plan covers 2,000 words a week on desktop. Yap is free only for its first 3 days; after that it is paid, with no permanent free plan.
- You want AI to reshape your words. It adapts tone to the app you’re in and lets you edit by voice. Yap writes down what you said, cleaned up lightly.
- You’re rolling it out to a team. Its paid plans add shared dictionaries, admin controls and single sign-on.
Other Wispr Flow alternatives, compared
| App | Best for | Devices | Where speech is recognized | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yap | Private dictation on every device, Android included | Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android | On the device, always | $6.90 a month or $69 a year, after 3 free days |
| Superwhisper | AI modes and a lifetime license | Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android | Local models; cloud models in Pro | Free with local Whisper; Pro $8.49 a month or $249.99 once |
| Aqua Voice | Names and jargon, read from your screen | Mac, Windows, iPhone | In the cloud, no offline mode | First 1,000 words free; Pro $10 a month |
| Willow Voice | AI rewriting and team plans | Mac, Windows, iPhone | In the cloud, with an offline mode | Free Basic plan; Pro $15 a month |
| VoiceInk | A one-time purchase, open source | Mac and iPhone | On the device | $25 once for one Mac |
| MacWhisper | Transcribing recordings on a Mac | Mac, iPhone and iPad | On the device | Pro €64 once |
| Handy | Free and open source | Mac, Windows, Linux | On the device | Free |
Prices in USD unless marked, from each app’s own pages. We make Yap. Each name links to our full comparison or, for Handy, to the fact it comes from.
No install, no account
Hear the difference local makes.
This demo downloads a small English speech model into your browser, then turns a sentence of your speech into text inside this tab. Your audio is not uploaded.
It is a separate, smaller model, so it does not represent the Mac app’s speed or accuracy.
Your voice. No app needed.
We’ll guide you through a first-use model download before you speak.
First, a guided download. Then, your voice.
English demo, up to 60 seconds. Audio and text stay in this tab. The model is cached in this browser for next time, while storage is available.
Trying Yap after Wispr Flow.
Download and open Yap.
It installs itself in Applications. The setup guide covers microphone and Accessibility access and the one-time speech model download.
Give each app its own shortcut.
Yap listens for Fn by default. If you keep Wispr Flow installed, make sure the two apps don’t share a key, or quit Wispr Flow while you try Yap.
Dictate where you already write.
Hold Fn, speak, and release. The text lands at your cursor in mail, notes, chats and documents.
Questions people ask.
- Does Wispr Flow work offline?
- Wispr Flow’s data controls page says: “Transcription always occurs on the cloud.” Dictating with it needs an internet connection. Yap recognizes speech on your Mac and keeps working offline for up to 24 hours after each successful subscription check.
- Is Yap cheaper than Wispr Flow?
- Yap costs $6.90 USD a month or $69 USD a year, after 3 free days with a free account and no card, and then a 10-day trial with a card. Wispr Flow Pro costs $15 USD a month, or $12 USD a month billed annually ($144 USD a year). Wispr Flow also has a free plan with 2,000 words a week on desktop; Yap has no permanent free plan.
- Can I use Yap on Windows, an iPhone or an Intel Mac?
- Windows and phones, yes: Yap runs on Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android with one subscription. On a Mac it needs Apple Silicon with macOS 13 or later; there is no Intel Mac version.
- Can I keep Wispr Flow installed while I try Yap?
- Yes. Give each app its own shortcut so one key press starts only one of them. Yap uses Fn by default, and you can change it in Settings.
From the library
Dictation Software: How to Choose the Right App
Start with the free dictation already built into your computer or phone, and pay only for what it cannot do: typing in every app, working offline, AI cleanup, a specialist vocabulary or full hands-free control. Four choices decide the rest (on-device or cloud, raw words or AI rewriting, subscription or one-time license, general or specialist), and a short test on your own writing settles the final pick better than any ranking.