Handy
Open-source offline dictation for Mac, Windows and Linux, MIT licensed
Open-source dictation app for Mac, Windows and Linux, released under the MIT license. Runs speech recognition locally with no account or cloud connection required. Community-maintained and free to use or modify.
Index summary: Handy scores 7.0 ± 0.4 out of 10 on The Dictation Index, rank #3 of 12 and statistically tied with ranks 1 to 8, from 176 public posts on X dated Jun 20 to Sep 16, 2026.
Where Handy wins and loses
Most favorable: Privacy (22 positive, 0 negative). Least favorable: Accuracy (13 positive, 12 negative). Topics with fewer than 15 labelled posts are marked as thin and left out of that comparison.
| Topic | Posts | Positive | Negative | Neutral | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Usability | 73 | 69 | 4 | 0 | |
| Price | 32 | 29 | 3 | 0 | |
| Accuracy | 26 | 13 | 12 | 1 | |
| Speed | 24 | 19 | 5 | 0 | |
| Platform support | 24 | 22 | 0 | 2 | |
| Privacy | 22 | 22 | 0 | 0 | |
| Reliability thin | 9 | 2 | 7 | 0 |
A post can discuss several topics or none, so these counts do not add up to n = 176. Counts are published in tools.json.
What people say
Example posts from the sample, each linked to the original on X and edged with the label it was given. A handful of posts cannot stand in for 176, so read the score and the topic table first. Quoted here and want it removed?
Your computer can now type as fast as you can talk. A guy named CJ built a free tool that turns your voice into a keyboard. It is called Handy. Press one shortcut, speak, then release it. Handy turns your speech into text and pastes it directly into whatever field you are
I tried @cj_pais's Handy. It's free, open-source, local voice-to-text transcription. And it's better than paid alternatives (sorry whisper flow). Things I like: - Mute system audio while recording - Works offline. OS Models are on your dang laptop! - Audio feedback / play sound
You all need to stop using claude or chatgpt or whisper for transcription and you need to start using Handy. Specifically the Nvidia Parakeet V2 model. it is just as intelligent as whisper but significantly faster.
I've finally fully embraced Raycast as the everything app it is, removed: - Handy for dictation - Magnet for window management - calendar thingies, raycast tells me when a meeting is due - Pasteapp, clipboard in raycast is perfect - Rocket for emojis Keeping Contexts for
Don't rawdog your voice to text... I used to be that guy So I moved away from Handy to @superwhisper because of their S1-Language local model. All available for free. The ability to clean up the text after dictation is suuuch a time saver. Drop filler words, drop "oh no, I
handy sucks and unreliable,drops mid conversion but speech to text is working well for me
Registry facts on this page were checked against Handy's own site on 2026-09-16. See something wrong, or represent Handy? Request a correction or send a reply. Comparing options? See alternatives to Handy.