Dicta vs superwhisper: local always, including the AI

Both apps can run on your Mac. Only Dicta runs the AI rewrite locally by default, with no account and no setup to remember. That is the whole difference, and this page is honest about the rest.

The one difference that matters

superwhisper is a mature, genuinely good dictation app. It even ships a bundled on-device model (Mistral 7B) so it can run fully local if you go and set it up. Credit where it is due.

But its default and its best-quality path steer you to the cloud: the recommended “Super” mode and its own S1 formatting model are cloud-hosted, and the cloud features need an account. Local is a setting you switch to and give something up for.

Dicta flips that. Local is the default, not a mode you opt into. The AI rewrite runs locally out of the box, bundled and tuned for your hardware, with no account to create and no cloud to sign into. Run Dicta behind a block-all firewall and every default feature still works. Dicta Pro also offers an optional external AI provider for anyone who wants one, off by default: unlike superwhisper’s cloud-first “Super” mode, it is never the path you land on by default.

Side by side

	Dicta	superwhisper
On-device transcription	Yes	Yes (same on Apple Silicon)
On-device AI rewrite	Yes, the default, bundled and tuned (external provider optional, off by default)	Optional (bundled Mistral 7B), but cloud by default
Account required	No, ever	Yes, for cloud and Pro features
Works fully offline, AI included	Yes, out of the box	Yes, if you pick the local model
Per-app writing styles	Yes, resolved automatically	Manual modes you set up
Languages	25, tuned for German and English, auto-detected	100+ from Whisper, their win
Platforms	macOS now; Windows and iOS coming	macOS, Windows and iOS today, their win
Model choice	Curated, one tuned model per tier	Large menu plus bring-your-own, their win
Price	About half the going rate, unlimited, nothing metered	Paid subscription, plus a one-time lifetime

When superwhisper is the better pick

We would rather tell you straight than oversell. Pick superwhisper if you need an iOS keyboard or Windows today, if you want the biggest menu of models and cloud LLMs, or if you want a frontier cloud rewrite and you are fine sending your text to the cloud to get it. It is shipped, polished, and it delivers.

When Dicta is the better pick

Pick Dicta if your work is regulated or offline-essential, if you live in German and English every day, if you want the AI rewrite local by default with no account, if you want about half the price with nothing metered, and if you want local as the default rather than a cloud mode you have to remember to avoid. Close the network and Dicta’s default setup does not skip a beat.

Not the most languages. The best German and English.

Most dictation apps treat German as an afterthought: one of a hundred locales. superwhisper counts 100+ languages that way, inherited from Whisper: real breadth, generic per-language quality, and its best formatting defaults to the cloud. Dicta is tuned and benchmarked for German and English first, and understands 23 more languages, auto-detected sentence by sentence, without ever leaving your Mac. More languages arrive as we add the Whisper engine; we will say “have” when we have them, not before.

About the price

Dicta Pro is about half the going rate of the leading paid dictation apps, the AI rewrite is included and local, and nothing is metered, so you talk as much as you like. A one-time Lifetime licence is coming too. We can offer lifetime honestly because your words never touch our servers: there is nothing for us to keep paying for. That is exactly why a cloud tool’s lifetime has to cost so much more.

Sources

Feature details for superwhisper are drawn from superwhisper.com and hands-on analysis of the shipping app, as published at the time this page was written, and are re-checked when we update this comparison. superwhisper’s pricing page was unreachable on the last check, so we compare on posture, not on a printed number; check their current price on their site. If something above is out of date, tell us at hello@getdicta.ai and we will fix it.

Dicta is in preview. Join the waitlist to hear when it ships.