Personal
Most people$29
was $49
Yours forever, on 2 Macs. Updates for a year.
Comparison
Flit vs FluidVoice
More product around the same models
Free, open source, local-first
The short answer
Flit and FluidVoice run much the same engines, Parakeet, Whisper, Apple, Nemotron, Cohere, so the model roster is not what separates them. What separates them is everything after the transcription. Flit resolves times, punctuation and more than 60 spoken commands by fixed rule, keeps a dictionary that asks before learning, indexes your open project so file names come out spelled right, and has no cloud path anywhere in the product. FluidVoice is free and open source under GPLv3, runs on Intel, and its optional AI cleanup can route through OpenAI or Groq. If free and open source is the deciding factor, FluidVoice is the real thing. If dictation is your all-day input method, Flit is the one built and maintained as exactly that.
Side by side
 Flit
| FluidVoice | |
|---|---|---|
| Where transcription happens | Your Mac, no cloud path | Your Mac; optional cloud cleanup via OpenAI or Groq |
| Price | $49 once, up to 2 Macs | Free, open source (GPLv3) |
| Updates | 12 months included, optional $19 renewal | Free, as released |
| Requirements | macOS 14+, Apple silicon | macOS 15+, Apple silicon or Intel |
| Speech engines | Parakeet, Apple, Whisper, and more, switched automatically | Nemotron, Parakeet, Cohere, Apple, Whisper |
| Languages | 99, all local | About 40, depends on the model |
| Exact times and commands | Fixed rules, more than 60 commands | Not stated |
| Knows your codebase | Indexes it locally | Not stated |
| Dictionary and snippets | Yes, learning asks first | Not stated |
| Long recordings | No, live dictation only | Yes, multi-hour transcription |
Compared against FluidVoice’s own published information. “Not stated” means they do not publish that detail. Prices change, so confirm before you buy.
Why people pick Flit
- No cloud path at all. FluidVoice can route cleanup through OpenAI or Groq; Flit has nothing to route anywhere, so there is no setting to check before a sensitive dictation.
- Times, punctuation and more than 60 spoken commands resolved by fixed rule, so the same phrase gives the same character every time.
- A local codebase index that repairs misheard file and symbol names against your real project.
- A dictionary that learns with your permission, scoped per language, plus snippets on a spoken trigger.
- macOS 14 support. FluidVoice starts at macOS 15.
- 99 languages all local, rather than a ceiling that moves with the model you picked.
In fairness
- It is free, forever, and the source is public under GPLv3. You can read every line before trusting it with a word.
- Intel Macs are supported. Flit needs Apple silicon.
- Multi-hour long-form transcription, which Flit does not attempt.
- Optional cloud cleanup through OpenAI, Groq or your own provider, if reaching a frontier model matters to you.
Listed because they are true. FluidVoice is local-first and its source is public, which settles the trust question on its own terms. The split is what happens after the audio: whether the commands are deterministic, whether the tool knows your project, and whether local is the whole product or the default with a cloud door beside it.
What actually decides it
Local-first and local-only are different products
FluidVoice processes speech on your Mac and states that 0 bytes leave it, and we have no reason to doubt that for the transcription. But its AI cleanup can optionally go through OpenAI, Groq or a custom provider, which means the private configuration is a setting rather than a property. Flit has no cloud integration to enable, so the guarantee is structural: there is nothing to misconfigure, and a network monitor shows the same silence on the day you install it and a year later.
What free and open source actually buys
GPLv3 source you can read is a genuine trust argument and we will not pretend otherwise; it is the same reason VoiceInk earns respect on these pages. What $49 buys instead is that Flit is somebody's full-time job: a release gate of self-tests before every build, support with a person behind it, and 12 months of updates with a stated $19 renewal rather than a roadmap that depends on a maintainer's spare evenings. Both models are honest. They just fail differently, and you should pick the failure mode you can live with.
The engine roster is a tie, so the product is the difference
Both apps run Parakeet, Whisper, Apple's recognizer, Nemotron and Cohere, which tells you the transcription quality question is mostly settled hardware-deep for everyone. Flit spends its effort downstream: deterministic spoken commands, a dictionary that asks before learning your words, per-app style rules, and a workspace index that spells UserAuthService.swift the way your repo does. That downstream stack is the part you feel 200 times a day, and it is the part a raw engine cannot give you.
The verdict
Choose Flit if
dictation is your all-day input method and you want deterministic commands, your own vocabulary, a codebase index, and no cloud door anywhere in the product.
Join the waitlist7 days free · $29 once, up to 2 Macs · macOS 14 or later · Apple silicon
Choose FluidVoice if
free and open source is the deciding factor, you are on an Intel Mac, or you need multi-hour recordings transcribed.
Questions
Why pay $49 when FluidVoice is free?
You are not paying for the speech engine, which is why this page does not pretend the engines differ much. You are paying for what surrounds it: fixed-rule commands, the learning dictionary, snippets, the codebase index, a release gate before every build, and support that answers. If none of that moves you, FluidVoice is a genuinely good free tool and we would rather you use it than a cloud subscription.
Do both keep my audio on the Mac?
For transcription, yes. The difference is the cleanup pass: FluidVoice can optionally send text through OpenAI, Groq or a custom provider, while Flit has no cloud path in the product at all. One is a good default you maintain, the other is a property you cannot lose.
Which supports more speech models?
The rosters are close and honestly not the deciding factor: both run Parakeet, Whisper, Apple and Nemotron family models. Flit adds automatic engine switching when a model cannot handle the language you spoke, which matters more in daily use than the length of the list.
What about Intel Macs and older macOS?
The trade runs in both directions. FluidVoice supports Intel but needs macOS 15. Flit needs Apple silicon but runs back to macOS 14. Check which half of that describes your machine before either product's other arguments matter.
Pricing
One price. Yours forever.
You will buy Flit once and it is yours permanently, on up to 2 Macs, with 12 months of updates. No subscription, no account, no upsell.
Launch pricing
First 100 licenses
Once they are gone, Personal steps to $39, then $49. Lifetime goes to $99.
Lifetime
$79
was $99
Yours forever, on 2 Macs. Every update, forever.
Not on sale yet. These are the prices Flit will launch at. macOS 14 or later · Apple silicon. 7 days free first, no card, and a 30-day refund.
Both include
- Every feature. There is no Pro tier and nothing is held back.
- All 99 languages and every local model, downloadable free.
- Developer mode, snippets, the dictionary that learns, a style per app.
- No account. Flit never asks who you are.
Team
Per Mac$195
$39 per Mac, once, with a year of updates. One key for everyone.
$34 per Mac from 10.
Join the waitlist
More than 50? Let us talk.
How a team license works
- Licensed per Mac. Ten people with one Mac each is 10 Macs. A laptop and a desktop count as 2.
- One key with exactly that many activations. Free a seat yourself when a Mac is replaced.
- Nothing to provision and nothing to audit. No accounts, and nothing leaves any Mac.
12 months of updates, one renewal date for the whole key.
macOS 14 or later · Apple silicon
Questions? The pricing page answers the usual ones. If a future major version is ever a paid upgrade, you will hear it from us before you pay for anything.
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