Potok transcribes Russian speech; this site has been translated into English for convenience.
Spokenly gets high ratings: 4.4 out of 5 on the Mac App Store with 59 reviews, 4.3 out of 5 on Trustpilot, 4.43 out of 5 on AlternativeTo. People praise desktop dictation on the Mac and free local models with no word limit, and complain about keyboard failures on iOS. Potok solves the task differently: cloud recognition and 2500 words free every week on Windows, macOS and Linux.
59 reviews on the Mac App Store give Spokenly an average rating of 4.4 out of 5. On Trustpilot and AlternativeTo the figures are similar, 4.3 and 4.43. For a niche dictation app this is a solid result, but behind the averaged rating there are two different stories: the desktop version is praised almost without exception, while the keyboard on iOS draws complaints from some users.
Where Spokenly ratings are collected
The summary below is built on three open sources: the app page in the Mac App Store, where Spokenly has 4.4 out of 5 from 59 ratings, the page on Trustpilot with a rating of 4.3 out of 5 from 7 reviews, and the AlternativeTo card with a rating of 4.43 out of 5 from 2 reviews. The three platforms moderate opinions differently: Apple ties a rating to the fact of installation through the App Store, Trustpilot accepts a review from any user with an account, and AlternativeTo is more a catalog with voting than a full review platform, so the sample there is very small.
A small number of ratings on Trustpilot and AlternativeTo is no reason to discard these sources, but no reason to treat them as equal to a full survey either: seven and two reviews show the direction of opinions, not a statistically reliable percentage. The rating on the Mac App Store, where the sample is noticeably larger, is closest to how regular users of the desktop version specifically see Spokenly, and it stands behind most of the wordings of “praise” and “complaints” below.
| Spokenly | Potok | |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms | Spokenly: macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS | Potok: Windows, macOS, Linux |
| Free | Spokenly: local models (Whisper/Parakeet) are free forever with no word limit; connecting your own API keys (BYOK) is also free | Potok: Free: 2500 words per week; full access for the first 14 days, no card needed |
| Price | Spokenly: $9.99/mo (Pro, monthly); $99.99/yr (Pro, yearly (≈$8.33/mo)) | Potok: Pro 690 ₽/mo, 499 ₽/mo when paid yearly |
| Payment from Russia | Spokenly: not disclosed | Potok: Russian bank cards, rubles |
| Where speech is recognized | Spokenly: hybrid: locally on the device (Whisper/Parakeet, free) or in the cloud (GPT-4o Transcribe, Deepgram Nova 3, Soniox and others, via BYOK or Pro) | Potok: cloud, servers in Russia; internet required |
| Russian language | Spokenly: not disclosed | Potok: primary language |
| Company | Spokenly: not disclosed | Potok: Sole proprietor, Russia |
Sources: spokenly.app · spokenly.app
What people praise in Spokenly
- Desktop dictation on the Mac is called stronger than that of some competitors; this is the most frequent praise in reviews on the Mac App Store.
- Flexible plans: you can stay on free local models or connect your own API key without a subscription.
- A large choice of recognition models and frequent updates from the developer are mentioned separately from the overall rating of convenience.
- On Trustpilot people note stable work and convenience compared with other dictation programs.
- People praise the developer's speed of response to bug reports: users write that problems are solved quickly and do not hang in the tracker for years.
- Good multilingual support together with offline models is a combination that reviews single out as rare for apps of this class.
- On AlternativeTo Spokenly is called one of the best free dictation tools in general, not only among paid analogs.
- People separately value that the local models work without having to pay anything, and this quality is noted in reviews independently on all three platforms.
What people complain about in Spokenly
Of the three sources, the complaints concern almost exclusively one part of the product, the keyboard for iOS. On the Mac App Store users write that the iOS keyboard causes unwanted switching between apps during dictation: it is inconvenient when instead of typing text the app suddenly minimizes. There people also separately note cases when the keyboard on iOS fails or glitches; the reliability of mobile input is below the desktop version for Mac.
On Trustpilot the complaint is of another kind: some settings in the app are described unclearly, and some options are not documented at all. For a program with hybrid recognition (local models, BYOK, the Pro subscription with cloud models) this is especially sensitive: working out which setting is responsible for which mode without documentation is harder than in a service with one single way of working.
There are no complaints about desktop dictation for Mac, Windows or Linux in these three sources at all; all the complaints are gathered around the iOS keyboard and documentation. But the sample itself is small: 68 reviews across three platforms in total is enough to see a direction but too little to rule out other problems that simply did not make it into the sample.
| Service | Platforms | Free | Price | Payment from Russia | Where speech is recognized |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Potok | Windows, macOS, Linux | Free: 2500 words per week; full access for the first 14 days, no card needed | Pro 690 ₽/mo, 499 ₽/mo when paid yearly | Russian bank cards, rubles | cloud, servers in Russia; internet required |
| Spokenly | macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS | local models (Whisper/Parakeet) are free forever with no word limit; connecting your own API keys (BYOK) is also free | $9.99/mo (Pro, monthly); $99.99/yr (Pro, yearly (≈$8.33/mo)) | not disclosed | hybrid: locally on the device (Whisper/Parakeet, free) or in the cloud (GPT-4o Transcribe, Deepgram Nova 3, Soniox and others, via BYOK or Pro) |
Who Potok will not suit instead of Spokenly
For those who need dictation with no internet at all, on the device, without sending sound anywhere, Potok is not a replacement: it is a cloud service, recognition runs on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet. In Spokenly the local Whisper and Parakeet models compute speech right on the device for free and with no word limit; for confidential recordings or an unstable internet this is the only working option.
Potok will not suit those who need iOS either: it has no client for that system, only Windows, macOS and Linux. Those who want to connect their own API key and choose between different cloud recognition models should also look toward Spokenly: in Potok recognition works on one own model, with no choice of engine. A similar review is in the article GigaType or Potok, and a broader choice of programs is in the catalog of voice input.
Frequently asked questions
Yes: the local Whisper and Parakeet models recognize speech right on the device, for free and with no word limit; cloud models through the Pro subscription or your own API key work only with an internet connection.
Yes: local models and the mode with your own API key (BYOK) are free with no time limit and no word limit. The Pro subscription is needed only by those who want ready cloud models without their own key.
Yes. The system macOS Dictation exists on Intel Macs as well; on Intel Macs the sound goes to Apple servers for recognition, so the internet is needed. Potok is an app for Windows, macOS and Linux, and it works on Macs with Intel.
It depends on the Mac. On a Mac with Apple Silicon, ordinary text dictation (messages, notes, but not the search field) is processed on the device; on Intel Macs and in some scenarios the sound goes to Apple servers, and then the internet is needed. You can see it exactly in System Settings → Keyboard: under Dictation it says whether the internet is needed and whether speech is processed on the device.
There is nothing to turn on: according to Apple's help, you can dictate text of any length without a time limit. Dictation stops by itself only if no speech is heard for 30 seconds.
Turn on Dictation: Apple menu → System Settings → Keyboard → Dictation. Then put the cursor in a text field, start dictation (the microphone key, if there is one in the row of function keys, the dictation keyboard shortcut or Edit → Start Dictation) and begin to speak.
If you want to compare for yourself
Take one of your own tasks and dictate it in Potok. The first 14 days have no limits and need no card. Potok is a cloud service: speech is recognized on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet.
Download PotokA voice message from a messenger or a call recording can be forwarded to the bot @potok_now_bot, and it sends back the text. The bot is part of the same subscription as the Potok app.
Primary sources: spokenly.app · spokenly.app · support.microsoft.com · support.apple.com