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Buzz

by Chidi Williams

A free, MIT-licensed desktop GUI around Whisper that runs on macOS, Windows, and Linux — file drop, live microphone, batch jobs, and offline transcription with no terminal required.

TL;DR

MIT-licensed cross-platform desktop app that wraps Whisper, whisper.cpp, and faster-whisper behind a single GUI. Runs entirely offline; supports file batches, live mic, YouTube URLs, and exports to TXT / SRT / VTT / CSV.

Best for non-technical users on Windows or Linux who want Whisper without a terminal, plus Mac users who'd rather click than type. Free Classic edition on GitHub; an optional paid Buzz on macOS ships on the App Store with a native UI.

What it is

Buzz is the open-source cross-platform desktop app for Whisper. File drop, live microphone, multiple model sizes, batch processing — all running locally. Free, MIT-licensed, and the closest OSS equivalent to MacWhisper across all three desktop OSes.

Best for: Non-technical users who want Whisper on their desktop without touching a terminal.
Watch out for: No native diarization; UI is functional rather than polished.

Install / use

pip install buzz-captions

Install paths · pick yours

Buzz ships through four channels — pick whichever matches your OS and packaging preference. Every card links to the canonical project / store page; no direct binary URLs.

macOS · Buzz Classic

Free GUI, all backends

The open-source Classic build for Intel + Apple Silicon. Free, MIT-licensed, ships every Whisper backend (Whisper, whisper.cpp, faster-whisper). Distributed through the SourceForge mirror linked from the official docs.

Download via buzzcaptions.com
Latest stable: v1.4.4 · 2026-03-14

macOS · Buzz on App Store

Native paid build

Native macOS rebuild with a Mac-style UI, transcript search, inline editing, and playback. Paid one-time license — Pro tier gets lifetime updates. Skip Classic if you want App Store sandboxing and signed updates.

App Store listing
Linked from the official Buzz Captions homepage

Windows

Installer from SourceForge

Official Windows installer published on SourceForge. The binary is unsigned, so SmartScreen will warn — click "More info → Run anyway" once and you're set. Same Whisper backends as the macOS Classic build.

buzz-captions on SourceForge
12k+ weekly downloads · Open Source Excellence badge

Linux · Flatpak

Flathub package

Sandboxed Flatpak distribution on Flathub. One command and you're running, no Python deps to manage. Same MIT codebase as the other channels.

flatpak install flathub io.github.chidiwilliams.Buzz
Updated alongside upstream releases

Linux · Snap

Canonical store

Snap channel maintained by the author. Pairs with a few apt deps for audio + GTK; install the prereqs once, then connect the password-manager-service plug so the app can persist its settings.

sudo snap install buzz
Stable channel · auto-updates via snapd

Any OS · PyPI

pip-installable, CLI-capable

buzz-captions on PyPI. Useful if you want to script Buzz from a venv, embed it in a pipeline, or run it on a box where you can't install packaged GUIs. Needs Python 3.12 and a system ffmpeg.

pip install buzz-captions
Then run: python -m buzz

Pattern: Classic + SourceForge / Flathub / Snap covers every desktop OS for free. Buy Buzz on macOS only if you specifically want a native-feeling Mac app with App Store updates — the GUI under Classic is functional but not Mac-stylebook. If you want a hosted version with diarization, drop the file in the widget at the bottom of this page.

Setup recipes · pick one and copy

Three working configurations covering the most common Buzz deployments — GUI install on macOS, source build for hacking, and headless batch transcription from a terminal.

1macOS · Buzz Classic from source

Free GUI build for Intel + Apple Silicon. Pulls all three Whisper backends; one-line install assuming Python 3.12 + ffmpeg.

# prereqs (Homebrew shown — any package manager works)
brew install python@3.12 ffmpeg

# install Buzz Classic from PyPI
python3.12 -m venv ~/.buzz-venv
source ~/.buzz-venv/bin/activate
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install buzz-captions

# launch the GUI
python -m buzz

Source: Buzz docs · Installation ↗ · prefer the prebuilt .dmg? Grab it from buzzcaptions.com ↗

2Run from the GitHub source tree

For hacking on Buzz itself, or running an un-tagged build. Uses poetry for deps and the bundled Makefile.

# clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/chidiwilliams/buzz.git
cd buzz

# install Poetry + deps (Python 3.12 required)
pipx install poetry
poetry env use python3.12
poetry install

# pull bundled translations + run
make translation_mo
poetry run python -m buzz

Source: chidiwilliams/buzz · CONTRIBUTING ↗

3Headless batch · transcribe a folder from the CLI

Drop the GUI entirely. Useful for cron jobs, build pipelines, or running on a server. Outputs SRT/VTT/TXT next to each input.

# install once
pip install buzz-captions

# transcribe every audio file in ./inputs to SRT
for f in inputs/*.{mp3,m4a,wav,mp4}; do
  [ -e "$f" ] || continue
  python -m buzz \
    --task transcribe \
    --model-type whisper \
    --model-size small \
    --output-formats srt txt \
    --output-directory ./transcripts \
    "$f"
done

# swap --model-type to faster_whisper or whisper_cpp
# for ~4× speedup; small/medium/large-v3 sizes available

CLI flags: see Buzz docs ↗. The CLI accepts the same model-type/size matrix as the GUI.

Features

Speaker diarization	No
Word-level timestamps	Yes
Streaming / real-time	Yes
Languages supported	99
HIPAA eligible	No

Buzz vs Whipscribe

Feature	Buzz	Whipscribe
Category	Open source	Transcription APIs
Pricing	free	free beta
Speaker diarization	No	Yes
Word timestamps	Yes	Yes
Streaming	Yes	No
Languages	99	99
Platforms	macOS, Linux, Windows	Web, API, MCP

Alternatives to Buzz

OpenAI Whisper

OpenAI

The reference open-source multilingual ASR model from OpenAI.

OSS · MIT ★ 98.1k

whisper.cpp

Georgi Gerganov

C/C++ port of Whisper — runs on anything, from a Raspberry Pi to Apple Silicon.

OSS · MIT ★ 48.8k

faster-whisper

SYSTRAN

4× faster than reference Whisper using CTranslate2 — production sweet spot.

OSS · MIT ★ 22.3k

Frequently asked about Buzz

Is Buzz free?

Yes. Buzz is free and MIT-licensed. You can also grab Buzz Pro from the App Store if you want to pay to support development, but it's not required.

Does Buzz work on Windows and Linux?

Yes — Buzz is cross-platform. macOS users have a free Classic build via buzzcaptions.com and a paid native rebuild on the Mac App Store; Windows is available from SourceForge; Linux ships on Flathub and Snap. Python users can also pip install buzz-captions on any OS.

Does Buzz support speaker diarization?

No native diarization. Buzz transcribes audio and produces text + segment timestamps; it doesn't label speakers.

How does Buzz compare to MacWhisper?

Buzz is the open-source cross-platform equivalent. MacWhisper is macOS-only, closed-source, and more polished. Pick Buzz if you want free + cross-platform; pick MacWhisper if you're on Mac and want a more refined UX.

Can Buzz transcribe in real time from my microphone?

Yes. Buzz supports live microphone input in addition to file transcription.

Whipscribe is a managed faster-whisper + whisperX service. If you want transcripts without running infrastructure, paste a URL or drop a file in the form below — you'll have a transcript in seconds.