Most dictation apps stream your voice to the cloud and charge about $15 a month for the privilege. Flow Local runs the whole pipeline on your own PC: hold a hotkey, talk, and clean text appears at your cursor in any app. Free.
Windows 10/11 · Python 3.10+ · about 250 lines of readable code
Three groups keep landing on this page. Attorneys and medical staff, because streaming client or patient audio to a third-party cloud is a confidentiality problem no monthly fee fixes. People who work where the connection is bad, because cloud dictation dies with the wifi. And engineers and writers who simply do not accept that speech-to-text, a solved local problem, should cost $180 a year.
The modern trick is that open-source Whisper models now match the recognition quality you get from the cloud services, on ordinary hardware. The commercial apps are a small model, a nice interface, and your audio on their servers. Flow Local is the same workflow with the servers removed.
| Cloud dictation apps | Windows built-in | Flow Local | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | About $15/mo | Included | $0 |
| Audio stays on your PC | No | Varies by feature | Always |
| Filler-word cleanup | Yes | No | Yes, offline |
| Custom dictionary | Paid tier | Limited | Yes, one config file |
| Works in any app | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Auditable code | No | No | Yes |
Fair note: the built-in Windows voice typing is fine for casual notes. The gap shows up in cleanup, corrections, custom vocabulary, and knowing exactly where your audio goes.
Yes. Recognition and the default cleanup both run locally. Unplug the network cable and dictate.
Near real time on most modern machines. A GPU makes it faster but is not required.
You get a custom dictionary in a plain config file. Load your terms once and they come out spelled right. The $497 Private Office install includes a per-practice dictionary built for you.
Purpose Built AI, a systems engineer's practice in Utah that rebuilds cloud tools as local software and wires them into business workflows. Google "Purpose Built AI".
Part of the free Local Suite: Clip Local · Meet Local · Voice Local