Happy Scribe vs mercuryScribe

Happy Scribe turns recordings and meetings into transcripts, subtitles, and translations, with support for 150+ languages. It identifies speakers, adds timestamps, and offers summaries, action items, custom templates, AI Chat, diarization, and searchable transcripts. Exports are available in DOCX, TXT, SRT, and MP4, and API access is supported. Meetings can connect with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Google Calendar, and Outlook Calendar. iPhone and Android apps offer offline recording. A Mac desktop app for recording calls without a bot is described as coming soon. The free plan allows unlimited meeting recordings, limited to 45 minutes each, with limited history and a 10-minute AI trial. Basic is $8.50 a month, Pro is $19 a month, and Business is $59 a month. Users can also buy credit top-ups without a subscription; plan credits reset each billing cycle, while top-ups remain until used. Data is not used to train AI models unless users opt in. Happy Scribe lists SOC 2 Type II certification, GDPR compliance, EU data residency, and TLS encryption.

mercuryScribe is a locally run web interface for transcribing audio and video, with transcript editing and document export. It uses Faster Whisper for speech transcription and pyannote models to distinguish speakers. Users can edit transcripts in a browser, save changes as VTT files, and generate HTML or DOCX files containing speaker names and timestamps. The FAQ says audio, transcripts, and metadata are not sent to external services; the models are obtained from Hugging Face. Users need a Hugging Face access token and must accept terms for the required models. MAXQDA support is included by default, and custom integrations can be developed. The maker documents Docker, Windows package, and Python package installation options. The software is free and open source under the MIT license for personal, academic, or commercial use, and is listed for Linux, macOS, Windows, and web. The maker describes it as built for researchers and also suitable for journalists, podcasters, organizations, educators, accessibility groups, and professionals. Professional services include installation help, training, workshops, and private server setup with GPUs.