Superwhisper vs MacWhisper: which Mac Whisper app do you need?

• Superwhisper is the better dictation app. You press a key, talk, and the text lands in whatever app you're in, shaped by a mode. One license covers Mac, Windows, iPhone and Android.
• MacWhisper is the better transcription app. Drag in a recording and get a transcript and subtitles back, free, with a one-time Pro license for the rest.
• If you dictate all day and transcribe now and then, Superwhisper Pro covers both. If you transcribe all day and dictate now and then, MacWhisper Pro covers both, for less.

We make Koi, a third Mac app that comes up at the end. Neither of these two is ours. Every fact about them is from their own sites and docs, plus two news reports on MacWhisper's latest update, checked on October 16, 2026. We didn't run accuracy tests. Superwhisper prices are in US dollars; MacWhisper sells in euros.

Sources: Superwhisper's home page and plans page, MacWhisper's site, its meeting recording guide, and the September 2026 reports from 9to5Mac and TidBITS on version 15.2.

Superwhisper is built around one moment: you hold a key, speak, and good text appears where your cursor is. Modes decide what happens in between. Message, Email, Formal, Casual, Legal and Chat come ready, and a Custom mode takes your own tone, formatting and prompt. The Free plan gives unlimited dictation with local Whisper models, a custom vocabulary, text replacements and up to two modes without AI processing.

Pro adds the parts that make dictation feel finished: AI modes, context awareness, realtime transcription, cloud voice models and the faster local Parakeet and Cohere Transcribe models. And one license covers unlimited Macs and Windows PCs plus your iPhone and Android phone, which MacWhisper can't match.

MacWhisper does dictate system-wide, with grammar improvement and AI prompts per app, and TidBITS reports that version 15.2 keeps your dictated language instead of switching to English. But its site leads with files, and so do its features.

Transcribing files is free in MacWhisper, and in Superwhisper it isn't. That alone settles it for a lot of people. MacWhisper reads mp3, wav, m4a, ogg, opus, mov and mp4, in 100 languages, and exports subtitles as .srt and .vtt and transcripts as .txt, .md, .pdf, .html and .docx. It can send results to Notion, Zapier, Obsidian, n8n, Make or a webhook, and you can drive it from the command line.

Version 15.2, released in September, detects up to eight speakers per recording and turns live meeting transcripts on by default for Pro users. Superwhisper lists speaker separation on Pro too, but it doesn't give a number.

You also pay once. €64 buys MacWhisper Pro with lifetime updates. Even after converting euros to dollars, that's well under half of Superwhisper's $249.99 lifetime license.

Both record calls without a bot joining. MacWhisper's guide lists the apps it notices by itself: Zoom, Teams, Webex, Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram, Skype, Chime, and browsers including Safari, Chrome, Arc, Brave, Edge and Firefox. It says FaceTime isn't available because of privacy limits built into macOS, that automatic recording only works in the version from its own site, not the Mac App Store one, and that the feature is a beta that may lose data, so start important meetings by hand.

Superwhisper lists Meetings on its Free plan, on the Mac only, with automatic notes. System audio recording and speaker separation are on its Pro list, so check what Free hears before you rely on it for the other side of a call.

If meetings are the main job, our Granola AI alternatives and how to record a Zoom meeting on Mac go further. Whatever you use, tell people you're recording and check the rules where you and they are.

This is where the two split in a way people miss. MacWhisper raised its minimum to macOS 15 Sequoia with version 15, TidBITS reports, so a Mac stuck on Sonoma is out. Superwhisper doesn't state a minimum on its home or plans page, but its FAQ says Intel Macs work best with its cloud models and that offline models only run really well on Apple silicon.

So on an Intel Mac, Superwhisper nudges you to the cloud, and on macOS 14, MacWhisper's current version won't install. Check both before you buy.

Superwhisper's lifetime license costs less than three years of its yearly plan, by $4.98. Students, educators and non-profits get 40% off if they email Superwhisper before buying, and buying inside its phone apps costs more. The Mac App Store edition of MacWhisper, called Whisper Transcription, is sold through in-app purchases instead of the €64 license.

Yes, and plenty of people do. Superwhisper for the words you speak into apps, MacWhisper for the recordings you already have. Set different shortcuts so they don't fight over one key. If you'd rather have one app, pick the one that matches the job you do most, then see whether its free side covers the other job.

Koi isn't a replacement for MacWhisper's file work: it doesn't transcribe audio or video files at all. It sits closer to Superwhisper. Koi's dictation types into any app when you tap Fn + ⌥, with Whisper running on your Mac (Small built in, Base and Large v3 Turbo a download away), on Apple silicon and Intel Macs with macOS 14 or later. Words appear while you speak, the ums and stammers are left out on the Mac, and it's unlimited on every plan.

Tap Fn + ⌃ to record a call with no bot: your side and theirs written down apart on the Mac, plus a video of the screen. Or pick In person for a meeting or class in the room. Koi also has an assistant you talk to, which uses cloud AI models.

What Koi lacks: no free plan (Pro is $20 a month after a 3-day trial that needs a card), Mac only, 57 languages rather than 100, no snippets, no modes you write yourself, and no speaker names beyond You and Them. More options in our best Whisper apps for Mac, or the full Superwhisper alternatives and MacWhisper alternatives.