Voicy vs Handy: paid cross-platform or free open source?

Pick Handy if you want dictation on a computer that costs nothing, runs entirely on your machine and lets you read the code. Pick Voicy if you want the same dictation on your phone and in Chrome as well, with AI rewriting and more languages, and you're fine paying for it.

We make Sayburst, a third option covered at the end. Everything below about Voicy and Handy comes from their official sites and Handy's GitHub repository, checked October 31, 2026. We describe both from those sources, not from hands-on testing.

#Voicy vs Handy at a glance

Sources: Voicy's own pricing and offline-dictation pages, handy.computer, Handy on GitHub. Checked October 31, 2026.

#What each app is

Handy is a small, free speech-to-text app. Its home page sums up the job as speaking into any text field: press a shortcut, talk, and Handy pastes what you said where your cursor is. Push-to-talk is the default, so you hold the key while you speak; switch that off and one press starts recording, another stops it. The shortcut is yours to change. The GitHub repo says it runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and the download button on the site currently offers an Apple silicon Mac build (version 0.9.8).

Voicy is a paid dictation service built to follow you across devices. It has desktop apps for Mac, Windows and Linux, phone apps for iPhone and Android, and a Chrome extension. You press a shortcut and it types where your cursor is, with automatic punctuation and AI rewriting on top.

The short version: Handy is a tool, Voicy is a subscription product. Both put text at your cursor, which is the part that matters most for day-to-day dictation.

#Where your voice goes

Handy's privacy story is simple. The site says your voice stays on your computer and transcription happens without sending audio to the cloud. You choose a model when you set it up: Whisper Small, Medium, Turbo or Large, or Parakeet V3, which the repo describes as CPU-optimized with automatic language detection. Whisper models use your GPU when one is available. Models download once, and sizes range from under 500 MB to about 1.6 GB.

Voicy is online by default. Its privacy FAQ says speech is processed and immediately discarded, that it doesn't store your recordings or transcripts, and that it doesn't train on them. If you want nothing to leave the machine, its desktop apps have an offline mode that downloads a model once and then transcribes on your computer in 25 languages. On a Mac, that mode needs macOS 15 or later. Voicy's offline page is clear that downloading the model, Rewrite Mode and Custom Modes still need a connection.

So if "local" is the requirement, Handy meets it from the first dictation, and Voicy meets it once you switch modes and give up its AI features. Our local vs cloud dictation guide goes into what that trade means in practice.

#What you pay

Handy is free. The code is MIT-licensed, though the repo notes the Handy name, logo and brand assets are not.

Voicy's 30-minute trial includes every feature and needs no card. After that, Pro is $8.49 a month or $82 a year, Lifetime is $260 once, and Team is $6.79 per user a month with a three-user minimum. Students and people with disabilities get 20% off. Over three years, Pro on the annual plan comes to $246, so Lifetime only pays off if you keep using it past that point.

#Where Handy is the better pick

• You don't want to pay. It's free, with no word or minute limit to watch.
• You want to see what runs on your machine. The source is public, so you or your IT team can read it.
• You want to choose the model. Handy lets you swap between Whisper sizes and Parakeet, and add custom Whisper GGML models.
• Linux is your main desktop. Handy covers Linux alongside Mac and Windows without a subscription. If you're comparing Linux options more widely, see our Linux dictation guide.

#Where Voicy is the better pick

• You dictate on your phone too. Handy has no phone app. Voicy covers iPhone and Android under the same plan.
• You live in Chrome. Voicy has a Chrome extension; Handy is a desktop app only.
• You want the words tidied, not just transcribed. Voicy lists automatic punctuation, formatting and AI rewriting. Handy's site doesn't describe text cleanup beyond transcription.
• You switch languages mid-sentence. Voicy says its online mode detects and switches languages on the fly across 50+ languages.

For a fuller look at Voicy on its own, read our Voicy review.

Voicy or Handy?

Handy is the easy recommendation for anyone who dictates on a computer and wants it free, local and open. Voicy earns its price only if you need one dictation account across desktop, phone and Chrome, or you want its AI rewriting. If you work on one Mac and want both local processing and polished text, read the next section.

#A third option: Sayburst

Sayburst sits between the two for people who write on a Mac. Like Handy, the speech model runs on your Mac and your audio is never uploaded. Like Voicy, it cares about the finished text rather than a raw transcript. Unlike either, it's paid once.

Hold fn, talk, let go. Sayburst removes fillers and accidental repeats, fixes capitals and punctuation, and handles "new line" and "bullet point". The optional Sayburst Writer is an AI model (Qwen3 4B) that runs on your Mac's GPU with no account and no internet, and it resolves self-corrections and shapes emails and lists.

Here's a code review comment, spoken the way it comes out of your head:

"So this function, um, retries forever when the token's expired, which, which is why the queue backs up. Can we cap it at three tries?"

What lands in the GitHub comment box:

This function retries forever when the token's expired, which is why the queue backs up. Can we cap it at three tries?

How it lines up against the other two:

A few details that matter if you're coming from Handy: you choose between Parakeet v3, Parakeet Ultra, Parakeet v2 and several Whisper models in the app, and our Parakeet vs Whisper benchmark shows how they compared on clean read speech. Writing modes can be set per app (Email for Mail, Message for Slack). If text can't be inserted because you switched apps, Sayburst keeps it and ⌃⌥⌘V pastes the last dictation anywhere.

The limits are real. Sayburst is Mac-only, needs an M1 or later, and has no phone app, no Chrome extension and no Linux build. If you need those, Voicy or Handy is the better tool. You can see how it stacks up against other apps on our comparison page.

#Which one should you install?

• Free, local, open source on any desktop: Handy.
• One subscription across computer, phone and Chrome: Voicy.
• Clean writing on a Mac with audio that never leaves it, paid once: Sayburst.

Questions people ask

What is the Handy dictation app?

Handy is a free, open-source speech-to-text app for Mac, Windows and Linux. You press a shortcut, speak, and it pastes the transcription into the text field you're in, with the speech model running on your computer.

Is Handy free?

Yes. Handy is free and its code is MIT-licensed on GitHub. Its name, logo and brand assets are not open source. Voicy, by contrast, is $8.49 a month, $82 a year or $260 once after a 30-minute trial.

Does Handy work offline?

Yes. Handy's site says your voice stays on your computer, and it transcribes with local Whisper and Parakeet models. Voicy works offline only when you switch on the offline mode in its desktop apps.

Is Voicy better than Handy?

Voicy is the better fit if you want phone apps, a Chrome extension, more than 50 online languages and AI rewriting. Handy is better if you want free, local and open source on a computer.

Is there a Mac dictation app between the two?

Sayburst is Mac-only, transcribes on the Mac like Handy, adds on-device cleanup and an optional on-device AI writer, and costs $29 once after a 7-day trial.