Happy Scribe vs OpenWhispr

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.

OpenWhispr is an open-source voice-to-text assistant for dictation, transcription, and notes. Dictation works in apps that accept text, including ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, Google Docs, Gmail, Slack, and Teams. It supports more than 100 languages with automatic language detection. For meetings, it can capture computer audio without joining a call as a bot, then create structured notes with decisions and action items. The note taker works with Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Discord, Webex, and other apps that play computer audio, without plugins or integrations. Audio can be processed on the device with local speech models or through OpenWhispr Cloud, which says it discards audio without retaining it. The company says user content is not used to train AI models. Free includes 2,000 transcription words per week and five meeting-recording hours per month. Pro costs $6.67/user/mo (annual). OpenWhispr runs on iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows.