Voice input for keeping a diary: is it true that dictating thoughts is easier than typing

Potok transcribes Russian speech; this site has been translated into English for convenience.

Dictating a stream of thoughts for a personal diary is usually faster than typing: you do not have to stop over typos and formatting, and a spoken thought turns into text by itself. The eight voice input programs differ in where such a personal entry is processed, on the device or in someone else's cloud, and in what free limit applies. Potok (potok.now) gives 2500 words per week for free.

A diary is not a short business phrase in a rigid structure but a free stream of thoughts that is easy to lose while your hands pick words on the keyboard. In this sense voice input is closer to how a thought arises in the head: you said it and did not get distracted by a typo in the middle of a phrase. We collected eight voice input programs and went through what matters in them specifically for personal notes, from the free limit to where the voice goes.

How we selected the programs

The selection includes voice input programs for Windows and macOS that work as a separate app on top of any text editor, not built into one particular notes service. For a personal diary, where an entry is not meant for other people's eyes, one point deserves separate attention: where recognition physically happens, on the device itself or on the server of a third-party cloud, where the voice goes before coming back as text. We also looked separately at the size of the free limit in minutes or words per week or month, because a diary entry is usually longer than a short phrase and uses it up faster, and at whether the program keeps a local history of what was dictated, apart from a separate limit.

What stands behind each row of the table

• SpeakFlow is limited to 30 minutes of dictation per month, free forever, and after that a subscription is needed; it works on Windows and in the browser. According to the site, recognition is in the cloud, and the country of the servers is not disclosed.
• Diktuy is available on Windows and macOS with the same monthly limit of 30 minutes; the site states 95–98% accuracy on clean Russian speech and support for more than 50 languages, and recognition, by the same data, is in the cloud, with the data center country not disclosed.
• Talkpad is more generous for regular entries: 2500 words per week on desktop and 1500 words on mobile permanently, plus a separate 14-day trial. It works on macOS, Windows and Android; recognition, according to the site, is in the cloud, the legal entity is registered in Australia, and the exact location of the servers is not disclosed.
• Voisty gives only 5 minutes of transcription to assess the quality: that is enough to try the program but not for a regular diary. But recognition runs right on the device, offline, with local models such as Whisper Large V3 Turbo and NVIDIA Parakeet, with no voice sent anywhere.
• WhispeRu works only on Windows and gives 7 days of full access with no card, after which access is cut off completely. Recognition also runs on the device, offline.
• GigaType is available on Windows and macOS and recognizes speech on the device, offline, on Sber's GigaAM neural network, trained specifically for Russian.
• Molvi is free forever, with no account and no payment, and it has no volume limit at all: you can dictate as much as you like. Recognition runs on the device: on an NVIDIA graphics card the quality is better, and without one a faster model runs on the processor.
• Lispr limits dictation itself to 60 minutes per week for free, but push-to-talk, translation, a personal dictionary and the local text history stay free always and without registration: the only program in the selection with an explicitly stated history of entries. Recognition is in the cloud, performed by Groq, Inc. in the USA.

Who fits what

For a short daily entry of a few minutes, almost any program in the selection will fit within its free limit, even with the monthly ceiling at SpeakFlow and Diktuy.

• For personal entries you do not want to send to someone else's cloud at all, offline options fit: Voisty, WhispeRu, GigaType and Molvi recognize speech right on the device.
• For long and regular diary sessions without a minute counter, Molvi fits better, since it has no volume limit, or Talkpad with a permanent 2500 words per week on desktop.
• If it matters not just to dictate text but also to keep its history separate from the document itself, look closer at Lispr: the local history works for free and with no time limit, separately from the limit on dictation.
• For text specifically in Russian, where a model trained for it matters, rather than a general list of dozens of languages, Diktuy with its stated accuracy and GigaType on Sber's GigaAM model are closer; more on how this works in different programs is in the material on voice input for Russian speech.
• WhispeRu fits more for a trial week: 7 days of full access are enough to see whether offline recognition suits you, and after that a paid license is needed.

Where Potok does not fit

Potok is a cloud service: recognition runs on servers in Russia, and it does not work at all without the internet. For a diary that by principle must not leave the device, a local option like Molvi or GigaType will do, not a cloud service on any plan. Potok has no apps for Android and iPhone, only versions for Windows, macOS and Linux, so you cannot dictate an entry from a phone before bed with it. Potok also does not support voice commands or voice editing of text: it inserts what you said, and rereading and fixing wording has to be done by ordinary typing. The free limit, 2500 words per week on one device, is generous for a short daily entry, but someone who dictates long reflections every day may need a paid subscription with no limit.

Frequently asked questions

Built-in dictation and Potok

Primary sources: speakflow.ru · speakflow.ru · speakflow.ru · blog.speakflow.ru