The four options
| Cost | Platforms | GPU | Speaker labels | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scrieb | Paid | Windows, Mac | NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, Apple | Yes |
| Buzz | Free | Windows, Mac, Linux | NVIDIA | No |
| WhisperDesktop | Free | Windows | Any DirectCompute GPU | No |
| Whisper WebUI | Free | Anywhere Python runs | NVIDIA | No |
Every one of these runs the model locally. None of them upload your audio.
WhisperDesktop
A free Windows GUI built on a C++ reimplementation of Whisper rather than the Python original. Its notable trick is DirectCompute: it will use an AMD or Intel GPU, which the official Whisper cannot. Drag a file in, pick a model, get text out.
What you give up: no speaker labels, no DOCX export, and development is sporadic. For a single-voice recording on a machine with a non-NVIDIA GPU, it is hard to beat for free.
Buzz
Open source, cross-platform, and the most actively maintained of the free GUIs. It handles imports and live recording, exports TXT, SRT and VTT, and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Same gap as the others: it produces a block of text with no indication of who said what. For interviews and meetings that is the difference between a transcript you can use and one you have to re-listen to. See what speaker diarization is.
Whisper WebUI
A browser interface built with Gradio. Despite running in a tab, it is still local — the server is on your own machine. Convenient if you already have Python set up; an extra install step if you do not.
Scrieb
The paid option, and the only one here that labels speakers inside the interface. It runs the same Whisper model locally on Windows and Mac, identifies who is speaking, writes summaries, and exports to DOCX, PDF or TXT.
No setup
No Python, no CUDA, no model files to place by hand. Install and drop a file in.
Speaker labels
Diarization runs on your device. Rename "Speaker 2" to "Respondent" afterwards.
Any GPU, or none
NVIDIA, AMD and Intel on Windows; Apple Silicon and Intel on Mac; CPU fallback everywhere.
Export that lands
DOCX to quote and edit, PDF to file, TXT for analysis software.
Honest summary
- Only need text, want it free: Buzz, or WhisperDesktop if your GPU is not NVIDIA.
- Need to know who spoke: Scrieb in a window, or WhisperX from a terminal.
- Already live in a terminal: the CLI costs nothing and does the same job. See Whisper for Windows.
Pricing
One licence for Mac and Windows. Speaker identification included, no minute limits. Free to try.
Frequently asked questions
- Is there a Whisper GUI?
- Yes, several. WhisperDesktop and Buzz are free and open source. Whisper WebUI runs in a browser tab. Scrieb is a paid desktop app. All of them run the Whisper model on your own machine — the difference is the interface, the GPU support and whether speakers get labelled.
- What is WhisperDesktop?
- A free Windows GUI built on a C++ reimplementation of Whisper. It uses DirectCompute, so it runs on AMD and Intel GPUs as well as NVIDIA — unusual among Whisper tools. It transcribes and exports text, but does not identify speakers.
- Which Whisper GUI works without an NVIDIA card?
- WhisperDesktop (DirectCompute) and Scrieb (Vulkan and OpenCL on Windows, Metal on Mac) both use AMD and Intel GPUs. The official Python Whisper only accelerates on NVIDIA via CUDA; everything else falls back to CPU.
- Do any Whisper GUIs label speakers?
- Of the common ones, only Scrieb does it in the interface. Buzz, WhisperDesktop and Whisper WebUI produce text without speaker labels. From the command line, WhisperX adds diarization but needs Python and a Hugging Face token.
- Is a GUI slower than the command line?
- No. The interface is a wrapper; the same model does the work. Speed is decided by the model size and whether the GPU is used, not by whether there is a window.
- Which should I use?
- If you want free and only need text, Buzz on any platform or WhisperDesktop on Windows. If you need speaker labels, DOCX export and no setup, that is what Scrieb charges for. If you are comfortable in a terminal, the CLI costs nothing.