MacWhisper or Dalm: a licence you pay for once, or notes that follow you to every Mac

MacWhisper and Dalm both turn speech into text on a Mac, dictate into any app and record calls, MacWhisper in Pro. MacWhisper keeps the words on your Mac by default: its help says transcription runs locally, and only cloud features you choose send audio or text out. Its Pro version is a one-time licence. In Dalm the speech is recognised on your Mac and no audio is sent anywhere, but the text syncs to our servers automatically, with no switch to keep it local, and you need an account. Because of that, each meeting’s summary, with quotes, is on every Mac you sign in to. Choose MacWhisper to keep transcripts local; Dalm for meeting notes that follow you.

MacWhisper and Dalm, side by side

	MacWhisper	Dalm
Where speech becomes text	On your Mac with a downloaded model; a cloud transcription provider you add with your own key receives the audio instead	On your Mac, always; no audio is sent anywhere
Where the words live afterwards	In a database on your Mac, by default	Synced to our servers automatically; no setting keeps them on the Mac only
Signing in	Pro is a licence, with a soft limit of three devices	An account is required to open the app
Telling voices apart	Automatic speaker recognition with local models, in Pro	Voices told apart on your Mac, on the Free plan
Summaries and questions	In Pro, through an AI provider you connect with your own key, or a model running on your Mac, when you ask	Written by an outside language model after each meeting, without being asked; it reads the text, never the audio
The audio afterwards	Meeting recordings, in Pro, stay in its Recordings tab	Deleted once the text exists, with one exception below; no player and no audio export
Saving the text	.txt, .srt and .vtt free; .md, .pdf, .html and .docx in Pro	Documents as Markdown, Word or PDF
Languages	100, by its site	Two speech models, “European languages” and “More languages”: you choose the coverage once, not the language
Apps	Mac; an iPhone and iPad version	Mac with Apple Silicon · macOS 15.0 or later; iPhone app in development

The audio is deleted once the text exists. What MacWhisper does is taken from its own site, help pages and privacy policy, checked on 2 October 2026.

Where MacWhisper is better than Dalm

• The words can stay on your Mac. By default MacWhisper transcribes with a model on your Mac, and its help says the device keeps the transcription data; its privacy policy goes further and says the app sends out no audio and no text, only anonymous events about the licence. Only cloud features you use send audio or text out: a cloud transcription provider, translation, or an AI provider for prompts — and summaries can come from a model running on your Mac. In Dalm the speech is recognised on your Mac too, but the text syncs to our servers automatically, no setting turns that off, an outside language model reads each meeting’s transcript to write its summary, and the app does not open without signing in. How local and cloud steps differ.
• Pay once. MacWhisper Pro is €64, paid once, with lifetime updates, and its free version has no time limit. Dalm Pro is $16 a month, or $12 a month billed annually (paid plans are not open yet): a subscription, with no one-time licence.
• Recordings you can return to. Pro records meetings and keeps them in MacWhisper’s Recordings tab, and plays a video with its subtitles. Dalm deletes the audio once the text exists, so there is nothing to play and a transcript cannot be made again.
• More ways out. Pro saves a transcript as Markdown, PDF, HTML or Word as well as text and subtitles, and translates it. Documents save as Markdown, Word or PDF, and speech is not translated.
• Files in bulk, and from a link. Pro transcribes YouTube and other media links, a batch of files at once, and watches folders for new ones. Dalm takes a file you already have, dragged onto the window or opened with ⌘O.
• Your choice of model. You pick the local model, a cloud transcription provider and an AI provider, each with your own key, or a model on your Mac for summaries. In Dalm there is no model to pick: you set the language coverage once, and the summary model is not yours to change.
• An iPhone and iPad version. It transcribes with local models at no cost. Dalm is a Mac app for Apple Silicon · macOS 15.0 or later; its iPhone app is in development.

Where Dalm is better than MacWhisper

• Each meeting ends as a summary, with nothing to connect. After every meeting a language model writes the summary from the transcript and the notes you typed: no API key, no provider to choose. The other side of that is plain — the transcript goes to that outside model each time, and there is no switch. Each point keeps the words it came from. Every quote shows you where it was said — open it and the transcript opens at that place.
• The same text on every Mac, and in a team. Because the text syncs to our servers — the same thing that puts MacWhisper ahead on privacy — your meetings and dictations are there on any Mac you sign in to. On the Team plan, a group shares one dictionary, templates and tags, and dictations stay visible to their author only.
• Meetings, voices and summaries on the Free plan. In MacWhisper, recording meetings automatically, automatic speaker recognition and AI providers are part of Pro; in Dalm, meetings with voices told apart and a summary after each come with Free.
• Tasks and decisions across meetings. Dalm gathers the tasks and decisions from all your meetings into two lists, kept up to date when you are online.

Paying once or by subscription: what each costs

	MacWhisper	Dalm
Free	No time limit: dictation, recording from the Mac’s microphone, 100 languages, .txt, .srt and .vtt	A plan, not a trial: dictation, meetings with voices told apart and a summary after each, files you bring in
Paid	Pro, €64 paid once, with lifetime updates, adds meeting recording and YouTube links among the rest; volume packs; a discount for students, journalists and non-profits	Pro $16 a month, or $12 a month billed annually; Team $40 a month for each member, or $32 a month billed annually
On how many devices	A personal licence has a soft limit of three	Your account, on the Macs you sign in to
Other ways to pay	Its App Store version has weekly, monthly and yearly subscriptions, and an optional Assistant subscription adds cloud transcription, summaries and chat	—

What Dalm’s paid plans add is on the pricing page, and how a team works from one dictionary and one set of tags has a page of its own. Dalm needs a Mac with Apple Silicon · macOS 15.0 or later; while it is not public, the way in is the waitlist. MacWhisper’s prices are its regular prices from its own site and help, checked on 2 October 2026.

Which steps leave the Mac, in each app

Step	MacWhisper	Dalm
Turning speech into text	A model on your Mac; a cloud transcription provider receives the audio only if you choose one	On your Mac; no audio is sent anywhere
Telling voices apart	Local models; or the cloud provider, if you chose one	On your Mac
Keeping the words	In a database on your Mac	On your Mac and on our servers, synced automatically
Summary and questions	Only when you ask: an AI provider gets the transcript and your prompt, unless the model runs on your Mac	After each meeting, without being asked: an outside language model gets the transcript, your notes and the names you gave voices — never the audio
Translation	A translation service gets the transcript	Speech is not translated
Before you start	A licence key for Pro	Signing in to an account; without it the app does not open

If everything in the left column has to stay on your Mac — client files, say — MacWhisper with local models does that, and Dalm cannot be set up to: there is no local-only mode. If you want each meeting to end as notes you can open on any Mac, that is what the right column pays for.

Staying with MacWhisper, moving to Dalm, or using both

• Stay with MacWhisper if transcripts must stay on your Mac, if you would rather pay once than subscribe, or if you need more export formats, translation, YouTube links, batch work, an iPhone version, or your own choice of models and providers.
• Try Dalm if most of what you transcribe is meetings, you want each one to end as a summary with quotes without connecting a provider, and you want the same text on your other Mac or in your team — knowing that the text syncs to our servers.
• Use both if some files must stay local and your meetings do not have to: MacWhisper for the first, Dalm for the second. If both apps dictate, set Dalm’s dictation key to a different one in Settings, so each app has its own.

Comparing more than two? Seven transcription apps, MacWhisper among them. In general terms: which steps run on the Mac and which in the cloud, and what keeps working without a connection.