A free Wispr Flow alternative that runs on your Mac.
Wispr Flow is cloud dictation for Mac, Windows and iPhone, free for 2,000 words a week and $15 a month after that. Hush is free and open source, and recognizes your speech on your Mac, offline. Pick Wispr Flow if you need it on every device. Pick Hush if you'd rather not pay or upload your voice.
Free and open source · Apple Silicon Macs · No account
Why people look for a Wispr Flow alternative
- 1
The word limit, then the bill
Wispr Flow's free plan stops at 2,000 words a week on desktop, and Pro costs $15 a month ($12 billed yearly). Hush has nothing to upgrade to: every feature is in the free download.
- 2
Your voice goes to the cloud
Wispr Flow recognizes speech on its servers and needs an internet connection. Hush runs open speech models on your Mac, so your audio stays there and dictation works on a plane.
- 3
An account and usage data
Wispr Flow needs an account, and its privacy policy says usage data is collected even with “Never store my data” turned on. Hush has no account, no analytics and no telemetry.
Hush vs Wispr Flow
Feature by feature, including what Hush doesn't do yet. Hover or tap a cell for details.
| Feature | Hush | Wispr Flow |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | $15/moPro plan; $12/mo billed yearly. |
| Free version | Everything | 2,000 words a weekOn desktop; 1,000 words a week on iPhone. |
| Open source | MIT | ✗Terms forbid decompiling to access source code. |
| Account | Not needed | Required |
| On-device speech recognition | ✓Parakeet, Whisper, Moonshine, Canary and other open models run locally. | ✗Cloud only. |
| Works offline | ✓Only the optional AI clean-up with a cloud provider needs a connection. | ✗Their docs say an internet connection is required. |
| Audio sent to a server | Never | Always |
| Usage analytics | None | YesUsage data is collected even with “Never store my data” on. |
| Live preview | ✓ | ✗Text is inserted after you stop speaking. |
| AI clean-up | ✓Optional, with your own provider key or Apple Intelligence. | ✓Built in, through their cloud. |
| Per-app styles | ✓Default, Message, Email, Code and Raw. | ✓By app category, English only. |
| Custom vocabulary | ✓ | ✓ |
| Voice snippets | ✓ | ✓ |
| Pauses media while dictating | ✓Pause, lower the volume or mute; resumes only what it paused. | ✓Mutes music on desktop. |
| Edit selected text by voice | Not yet, Coming next | ✓Command Mode, Pro plan. |
| Context awareness | Not yet, Coming next | ✓ |
| Learns from your corrections | Not yet, Coming next | ✓ |
| Mac (Intel) | Not yet, Coming later | ✓ |
| Windows | Not yet, Coming later | ✓ |
| iPhone | ✗Not on the roadmap yet. | ✓ |
Wispr Flow details come from its own website, docs and terms, checked October 2026. Spotted something wrong? Open an issue.
Where each one is ahead
Where Hush is ahead
Hush costs nothing and has no word limit. Speech is recognized on your Mac, so it works offline and your audio is never uploaded. With the Live preview model you see words while you talk; Wispr Flow inserts text after you stop. AI clean-up is optional and goes through a provider you pick, or Apple Intelligence on your Mac. And the code is public.
Where Wispr Flow is ahead
Wispr Flow does more today. Its Command Mode (Pro) edits selected text by voice, it reads context from the app you are in, and its dictionary learns from your corrections. It also runs on Windows, iPhone and Intel Macs, and cleans up text without any setup. Voice editing, context and a learning dictionary are next on the Hush roadmap; Intel and Windows come later, and there is no iPhone app.
Which one is right for you?
Choose Hush if
- You dictate on a Mac with Apple Silicon
- You don't want a subscription or a weekly word limit
- You want your speech recognized on your own machine, even offline
- You want to read, build or change the code
Stay with Wispr Flow if
- You need dictation on Windows, iPhone or an Intel Mac
- You want to edit selected text by voice today
- You want clean-up that works with no provider or setup
- You want a dictionary that learns from your corrections
Switching from Wispr Flow
Install Hush
Download Hush, drag it to Applications and grant Microphone and Accessibility access. It takes about two minutes, and there is no account to create.
Sort out the shortcut
Hush listens for Fn by default. If Wispr Flow is still running on the same key, quit it or give Hush a different shortcut in Settings.
Bring your words across
Hush has no importer, so add the names and terms from your Wispr Flow dictionary as custom words, and recreate your snippets in Hush's settings.
Turn on AI clean-up, if you want it
Wispr Flow cleans up every dictation in its cloud. In Hush clean-up is optional: use Apple Intelligence on supported Macs, or add a key from Groq, OpenAI, Anthropic or another provider, then set a style for each app.
Hush and Wispr Flow: questions
Is there a free alternative to Wispr Flow?
Does Wispr Flow work offline?
Can I use Hush and Wispr Flow side by side?
Comparing more apps? See the full comparison with OpenWhispr, Spokenly, Willow and Apple Dictation, or read Hush as a Superwhisper alternative or a VoiceInk alternative.
You talk faster than you type.
About three times faster. Hush turns that into text you can actually send, for free, without your voice leaving your Mac.
Apple Silicon Macs · Free and open source