Comment by atlgator

6 hours ago

This thread is a support group for people who have each independently built the same macOS speech-to-text app.

I'm tracking them all here:

https://opensource.builders/alternatives/superwhisper

Just added Ghost Pepper, and you can actually create a skill.md with the features you need to build your own

In the /r/macapps subreddit, they have huge influx of new apps posts, and the "whisper dictation" is one of the most saturated category. [0]

>“Compare” - This is the most important part. Apps in the most saturated categories (whisper dictation, clipboard managers, wallpaper apps, etc.) must clearly explain their differentiation from existing solutions.

https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1r6d06r/new_post_r...

I did mine on nixOS with a nice little indicator built into Noctalia.

It's remarkable how similar its performance is to Wispr Flow... and it runs locally...

In the most possible Apple fashion, I am waiting for MacOS 27 or 28 to have this builtin.

Its gotten so bad that its a meme on the macapps subreddit.

This is the unfortunate real face of open source. So many devs each making little sandcastles on their own when if efforts were combined, we could have had something truly solid and sustainable, instead of a litany of 90% there apps each missing something or the other, leaving people ending up using WisprFlow etc.

hahaha I’m glad I’m just a procedurally generated NPC

I built one for cross platform — using parakeet mlx or faster whisper. :)

Yeah, but mine... Oh. Hello. sighs It's been three weeks since I tried to add feature to my version of the app. I don't miss it. I like this new life. Sober.

My name is Cole and I have a speech to text app.

When I most recently abandoned it, the trigger word would fire one time in five.

Oh to be 20-something and do a bunch of free work for your portfolio again

  • I'll have you know that I'm Matt's top contributor to Ghost Pepper and I'm nearly fifty

    But I did it because I wanted it to work exactly the way I wanted it.

    Also, for kicks, I (codex) ported it to Linux. But because my Linux laptop isn't as fast, I've had to use a few tricks to make it fast. https://github.com/obra/pepper-x

    • I'll look at this, thank you. I haven't yet gotten around to vibe coding my own itch yet so maybe your scratching will do.