[PhilippGille]

Has anyone compared this with https://github.com/HeroTools/open-whispr already? From the description they seem very similar.

Handy first release was June 2025, OpenWhispr a month later. Handy has ~11k GitHub stars, OpenWhispr has ~730.

[gabrielste1n]

Creator of OpenWhispr here! Honoured to be compared to Handy!

I built OW because I was tired of paying for WisprFlow. I'd say it is more flexible by design: Whisper.cpp (CPU + GPU) for super fast local transcription, Parakeet in progress, local or cloud LLMs for cleanup (Qwen, Mistral, Gemini, Anthropic, OpenAI, Groq etc.), and bring-your-own API keys!

Handy is more streamlined for sure!

Would love any feedback :)

[kuatroka]

I did have tried, but the ease of installing handy as just a macOS app is so much simpler than needing to constantly run in npm commands. I think at the time when I was checking it, which was a couple of months ago they did not have the parakeet model, which is a non-whisper model, so I had decided against it. If I remember correctly, the UI was also not the smoothest.

Handy’s ui is so clean and minimalistic that you always know what to do or where to go. Yes, it lacks in some advanced features, but honestly, I’ve been using it for two months now and I’ve never looked back or searched for any other STT app.

[ranguna]

The OP asked if someone compared both, which usually means actually trying both and not just installing one and skimming through the other's README file. So, in summary, you didn't try both and didn't answer the OP.