Comparison
Murmur vs Superwhisper: two takes on local dictation
· 5 min read
Superwhisper is the app we respect most in this space, because it made the same core bet we did: your voice should be processed on your Mac, not on someone's server. If you're comparing the two, you've already decided privacy matters. What's left is philosophy, features and price.
Two philosophies of "local"
Superwhisper is a power tool. It lets you download and swap Whisper models of different sizes, define custom modes with your own prompts, and tune the pipeline to your taste. That flexibility is genuinely great, and tinkerers love it for good reasons.
Murmur is an appliance. There are no models to choose, no modes to configure, no settings safari. You hold ⌥space, speak, release. Apple's speech recognition transcribes, Apple Intelligence rewrites, and the text lands in whatever app is frontmost. The entire app is about 2 MB because it orchestrates frameworks your Mac already ships with, instead of bundling its own models.
Side by side
| Murmur | Superwhisper | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, forever | Free tier, paid Pro (subscription or lifetime) |
| Processing | On-device (Apple frameworks) | On-device (Whisper models) |
| Setup | None | Pick models, configure modes |
| Professional rewrite | Built in, Apple Intelligence | Via configurable AI modes |
| Instant translation while dictating | Yes, same gesture | Depends on configuration |
| Disk footprint | ~2 MB | Hundreds of MB to several GB with models |
| Custom prompts and modes | No | Yes |
| Account required | No | No |
Details are accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of writing; see superwhisper.com for the latest.
Where Superwhisper wins
If you want control, Superwhisper gives you real knobs: model choice for accuracy versus speed, custom vocabularies and per-context modes you author yourself. If your workflow is specific enough that you'd enjoy prompt-engineering your dictation, it is the better tool for you.
Where Murmur wins
Zero configuration is a feature. Most people don't want to benchmark Whisper variants. They want to talk and see clean text appear. Murmur's defaults are the product.
The rewrite is systemic, not a mode. Murmur's professional polish and its instant translation are part of the single dictation gesture, tuned per app, with nothing to switch.
Two megabytes. No model downloads, no storage cost, nothing to update when a better model ships: your Mac's own frameworks improve with each macOS release and Murmur inherits that for free.
Actually free. No trial logic, no Pro tier. The good parts are the parts.
The bottom line
Superwhisper for tinkerers who want to own every knob. Murmur for people who want the knob count to be zero. Both keep your voice where it belongs, and since one of them is free, trying both costs you exactly one subscription's worth of nothing.