TypeAloud vs Willow Voice
A Willow Voice alternative
that runs on your own Mac.
Willow Voice is a polished cloud dictation app. Its free plan uses a lighter model and its Pro plan costs $12 to $15 a month. TypeAloud transcribes locally, so the full app is free and keeps working without a connection.
TypeAloud and Willow Voice compared
| TypeAloud | Willow Voice | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free plan with a lighter model; Pro $12/month billed annually or $15 monthly |
| Where speech is transcribed | On your Mac, in local mode | On Willow's servers |
| Works offline | Yes, after a one-time model download | No, it needs a connection |
| Account | Not needed | Required |
| AI rewriting and formatting | No. It writes what you said | Yes |
| Source code | Open source (GPL-3.0) | Closed source |
| Platforms | macOS; Windows and Linux builds are experimental | Mac, Windows and iPhone |
Competitor details checked on 25 Oct 2026 against willowvoice.com/pricing. Prices and limits change; the official pages are authoritative.
The full model, for free
On Willow's free plan you get its lighter model; the better one is part of Pro. TypeAloud has no tiers. Its recommended local model, Qwen3-ASR 0.6B, and the larger 1.7B are both in the free download.
Same habit, no upload
Hold Ctrl+Shift in any app, speak and release; the text is inserted at your cursor. In local mode the audio is processed on your Mac and never uploaded, so there is no server-side copy to worry about.
Where Willow Voice is the better choice
Willow cleans up and formats what you say, learns your style, and has an iPhone app and team plans. TypeAloud gives a faithful transcript and is a desktop app tested mainly on macOS.
Common questions
- Is TypeAloud really free?
- Yes. Local transcription needs no account, API key or subscription, and there is no word limit. Cloud transcription is optional and uses your own Groq or OpenAI key, which those providers may charge for.
- Does my audio leave my Mac?
- Not in local mode. The model runs on your device and transcripts are saved there. Audio is only uploaded if you choose a cloud engine with your own API key.
- Do I have to replace my input method?
- No. TypeAloud is not an input method. It inserts the finished text at your cursor, so you keep typing with whatever keyboard or IME you use and hold Ctrl+Shift when you want to speak.
- Which Macs can run it?
- Apple Silicon is recommended for local dictation. The recommended model is a one-time download of about 1 GB.
Local transcription. No account. No subscription.
Download for Mac