Dragon is discontinued, expensive, and locked behind subscriptions. Whisper Dictator gives you 99.9% accuracy, works 100% offline, and starts free. Powered by OpenAI's Whisper AI.
Windows 10/11 (64-bit) · Free tier: 7 transcriptions/day
Nuance has discontinued Dragon NaturallySpeaking for consumers. No more updates, no more support. Existing licenses are becoming obsolete with each Windows update.
Dragon Professional costs $500+. Even when available, it required expensive licenses and annual subscriptions. Most users are priced out of professional dictation.
Google Voice Typing and Windows Dictation send your audio to the cloud. Wispr Flow requires internet. None offer true offline, private transcription.
Powered by OpenAI's Whisper AI running 100% locally on your machine. State-of-the-art accuracy that rivals Dragon — without the price tag, subscriptions, or privacy concerns.
Feature-for-feature comparison of why users are switching from Dragon to Whisper Dictator.
Like Dragon, all processing happens on your computer. Unlike Dragon, we don't require activation servers or internet check-ins.
Global hotkey works in Word, email, EMR systems, browsers, Slack — anywhere you type. No special plugins needed, unlike Dragon's app-specific integrations.
Dragon supports about 20 languages. Whisper Dictator supports 99, including right-to-left languages like Arabic and Hebrew.
NVIDIA CUDA support for lightning-fast transcription. Up to 10x faster than CPU-only. Dragon never offered GPU acceleration.
Start free with 7 transcriptions/day. Upgrade to lifetime for $99 one-time. No annual fees, no recurring charges, no expiring licenses.
Tiny indicator stays out of your way. No heavy desktop app, no toolbar, no training period. Just hold a key, speak, and release.
Download the installer, run the 5-minute setup wizard. One-time setup — much simpler than Dragon's complex installation process.
Press and hold your hotkey (AltGr by default) anywhere on Windows. Speak naturally — no voice training required, unlike Dragon.
Release the key. Your speech is transcribed locally in seconds and typed automatically where your cursor is.
See how Whisper Dictator compares to Dragon NaturallySpeaking, Windows Dictation, and Wispr Flow.
| Feature | Whisper Dictator | Dragon NaturallySpeaking | Windows Dictation | Wispr Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100% Offline | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
| Private (No Data Sent) | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
| Works in Any App | ✓ | ✕ | ~ | ✓ |
| Free Tier Available | ✓ | ~ | ✓ | ✕ $300+ |
| No Subscription | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ |
| GPU Acceleration | ✓ | N/A (Cloud) | N/A (Cloud) | ✓ |
| 99 Languages | ✓ | ~ 50+ | ~ 10+ | ~ 20+ |
Start free, upgrade when you need more. No subscriptions, no BS.
Perfect for trying out voice dictation
~$3.33/month — Dragon costs $500+/year
Pay once, own forever. Dragon costs $500+.
Whisper Dictator uses OpenAI's Whisper AI, which achieves near-human accuracy across 99 languages. For English dictation, accuracy is comparable to Dragon Professional. The Large-v3 model provides the highest accuracy, while smaller models offer faster processing.
Nuance (now owned by Microsoft) discontinued Dragon NaturallySpeaking for individual consumers to focus on enterprise healthcare solutions (Dragon Medical). This left millions of users without a professional-grade offline dictation option — until Whisper Dictator.
Whisper Dictator uses a fundamentally different AI approach (transformer-based neural network) that doesn't require voice training or profiles. You'll get high accuracy right out of the box with zero setup — no hours of reading text to train the system.
Dragon Professional cost $500+ with annual subscriptions. Whisper Dictator starts free (7 transcriptions/day) and offers unlimited use for $99 one-time (Lifetime) or $39.99/year. That's over 80% savings compared to Dragon.
Yes. Whisper AI was trained on diverse audio including medical and legal content. While Dragon had specialized medical/legal editions, Whisper Dictator handles professional terminology well across all fields without needing separate expensive editions.
Wispr Flow and similar tools require internet and send your audio to cloud servers. Whisper Dictator processes everything locally — your audio never leaves your computer. This makes it the only true privacy-first alternative to Dragon.
Join thousands who switched from Dragon to modern, AI-powered dictation. 100% offline, 100% private.
Download FreeWindows 10/11 · No subscription required