Vito vs Handy

Handy is the closest thing to a sibling on this page: free, MIT-licensed, cross-platform, and it runs on Linux. Around 33,000 people have starred it on GitHub, which is a lot, and deserved. Both can keep speech recognition on your computer: Handy offers a catalogue of around 80 local models, from Whisper to Parakeet, while Vito manages two local engines itself — Parakeet and the much lighter Whistle — and also lets you choose OpenAI-compatible local or remote endpoints.

At a glance

Checked against handy.computer and their repository and their troubleshooting page in October 2026.

Where Handy is the better choice

Your speech never leaves your computer, by design

"Your voice stays on your computer," as they put it, and for the speech it is literally true — every model Handy offers runs locally, and there is no transcription provider in the picture at all. Its optional AI post-processing can call a provider with your own key, but it stays off unless you switch it on, and a local Ollama works too. Vito gives the same guarantee once you pick Whistle or Parakeet and a local cleanup model; with Handy there is simply no cloud transcription to pick by mistake.

A wide choice of local models

This is where Handy has quietly pulled ahead. It no longer revolves around Whisper alone: it offers a catalogue of around 80 local models — Parakeet V2 and V3, Canary, Moonshine, Whisper in its various sizes and streaming models among them — and recommends Parakeet V3 as the most stable. If you like to try models and keep the one that suits your voice, your language and your machine, Handy gives you far more room. Vito deliberately offers two local engines, Parakeet and Whistle, and manages them for you; anything else goes through an OpenAI-compatible endpoint you run yourself.

It is free with no asterisk

Neither tool needs a provider account or usage payment when run locally. Handy does that by design; Vito combines Whistle or Parakeet with an optional local cleanup model, and still lets you choose remote providers when lower system load or broader language support matters.

Nothing to set up

Download, pick a model, dictate — and with Homebrew or winget even the download is a single command. No API keys, payment method or accounts. Vito's managed local engines work the same way, and its browser version needs no install at all, though there the text lands on your clipboard; Vito's cleanup and endpoint choices do add more settings.

Where Vito is the better choice

You want local processing with more control over the result

Vito installs and manages two local engines: Parakeet, in 25 European languages, and Whistle, an 18 MB download in seven languages that shows the text while you speak. It also connects to any local or remote OpenAI-compatible transcription endpoint. Its AI cleanup offers five built-in styles — including Business, Verbatim and Notes — and lets you write the prompt yourself. A local cleanup model keeps that step private too.

Your computer does not have to be fast

This is the honest trade and it is worth being specific about. Everything Handy does runs on your own processor or graphics card, so how fast it feels depends on the model you choose and the machine you run it on. On a capable computer it flies; on an older one you may have to settle for a lighter model, or put up with slow dictation.

Vito gives you two ways round that. With a cloud provider the hard part happens elsewhere: an eight-year-old laptop gets the same speed and accuracy as a new workstation, your processor stays free while you dictate, and the fan stays quiet. Locally, Whistle is light — 18 MB, with live text — while Parakeet wants about 1 GB of memory and shows the text once you stop. You choose between low system load and zero usage fees, and you can change your mind later.

The text comes out finished, not just accurate

Handy transcribes, and it can now optionally pass the result through a language model — an experimental feature, off by default, using your own key or a local Ollama — besides stripping filler words without AI. In Vito that second AI pass is the core of the product: built in, on by default once a cleanup model is set, with five styles and your own prompts. It removes the hesitations, restructures the sentence you rambled, adds the line breaks you asked for and turns "thumbs up" into 👍. That is a different product decision rather than a better one; if you only want the raw words, Handy's default is exactly that. Cleanup needs a model, which can be a local OpenAI-compatible one rather than a second key.

Whether it works well is not really up to you

Running the model locally is Handy's best feature and also its hardest part, and their own documentation is candid about it. The troubleshooting page covers Whisper crashing, transcription being slow, the microphone not being found, models failing to download, a missing vulkan-1.dll on Windows, a blank window on Linux, an overlay that steals focus, Wayland needing extra configuration, and a GLIBC error from the AppImage. Where a model gives trouble, they point you to Parakeet V3 as the most stable choice.

None of that is carelessness — it is what shipping local inference across three operating systems, with dozens of models to choose from, actually looks like, and the fact that they document it this openly says good things about the project. But it does mean the experience varies from machine to machine, and finding the combination of model, drivers and settings that runs nicely on your computer can be a bit of a search. Vito narrows that search. With a cloud provider the model does not run on your machine at all, so it behaves the same everywhere. Locally, Vito offers two engines rather than dozens and installs a pinned build of each itself, so there is less to choose and less to go wrong — though a local model on an old machine is still a local model on an old machine.

The interface speaks your language

Vito's own interface is available in 60 languages, not just its dictation. Handy ships 26, which is a lot more than most projects of its size bother with.

Ask the AI by voice — Handy has no voice commands

Handy turns speech into text — tidied, if you switch its post-processing on — and stops there. Vito's Vito Assist turns speech into an instruction: "Vito, translate this to German", "Vito, what's the capital of France?", "Vito, 15% of 240?" — translations, answers, maths and definitions, spoken as easily as dictation and returned in place. If you want your dictation app to also answer questions, Handy does not, and Vito does.

It is quite good fun

A small thing, and we are not going to pretend it decides anything. Vito keeps count on a dashboard you arrange yourself: words dictated, hours of typing you did not have to do, a chart of your week, a calendar of the last six months and a streak of days in a row — beat your record and the card celebrates. Vito himself, the logo with a face, chats along while you dictate. There are 50+ achievements to unlock along the way, some of them silly, several of them hidden.

It turns out to matter more than it sounds like it should. Dictating instead of typing is a habit you have to build, and the first week is the awkward part — seeing "1 h 38 m of typing saved" is a nudge to keep going that a blank window does not give you. If that sounds like a gimmick to you, ignore it entirely; nothing depends on it.

What they both do

Both are open source and MIT-licensed, both free to download, both run on Windows, macOS and Linux, and both work the same way: a hotkey, you talk, text lands where your cursor is. Both can do the whole job on your own computer, with no account and no audio leaving it. Both are young, actively developed in public, and you can read every line of either one. If you want the widest choice of local models in a lean tool that stays out of the way, Handy is the project we would point you at — and this comparison exists to help you pick, not to talk you out of it.

So which one

• Audio must never leave the machine, or no internet? Either can work; Handy offers far more local models.
• Want to try many local models and keep the best? Handy.
• Older or lower-powered computer? Vito, with a cloud provider or the light Whistle.
• Want the text to arrive already tidied up? Vito.
• Want voice AI commands? Vito.
• On a Mac? Either — decide on the trade above, not the platform.
• Want it to cost literally nothing? Either; both can run locally with no usage fees.