oTranscribe (o transcribe): the free manual transcription editor

by Elliot Bentley

Don’t want to sign up for oTranscribe? Drop the file here.

The first 20 minutes of any recording are transcribed free: a recording up to 20 minutes transcribes in full, a longer one is previewed, and a pack from $6 (500 minutes) transcribes the rest and opens every export, and credits never expire.

oTranscribe is a free browser tool for typing a transcript by hand with keyboard-controlled playback. It does not transcribe for you. Here is how it works and what replaces the typing.

Web  ·  free

TL;DR

Free open-source browser transcription pad — no upload, runs locally.

Best for journalists and researchers transcribing interviews — audio never leaves the browser. Pricing: free.

Category
Products
License
MIT
Stars
★ 1.2k
Last push
2026-07-25
Pricing
free
Platforms
Web

What it is

oTranscribe is a free, browser-only manual transcription pad. Audio is loaded locally (never uploaded), playback is keyboard-controlled, and notes save to LocalStorage. MIT-licensed and runs offline once loaded.

Best for: Journalists and researchers transcribing interviews — audio never leaves the browser.
Watch out for: Manual typing — no automatic transcription. No native diarization or auto-timestamping (manual hotkey insert).

Install / use

Go to oTranscribe (web) otranscribe.com

What people actually do with oTranscribe (web)-style transcription

The tool is the means. These are the jobs — each one priced at published rates, each one wired up on its own page.

Wire it into ZoomSlackNotionAirtableLoomMake.com

Features

Speaker diarizationNo
Word-level timestampsYes
Streaming / real-timeNo
Languages supportedNone
HIPAA eligibleNo

Links

GitHub repo ↗

oTranscribe (web) vs Whipscribe

FeatureoTranscribe (web)Whipscribe
CategoryProductsTranscription APIs
PricingNot verified$6–$24 one-time packs (credits never expire) · first 20 minutes free
Speaker identificationNot verifiedNamed in the summary, key quotes and chapters
Word timestampsNot verifiedYes
StreamingNot verifiedNo
Languages—99
PlatformsWebWeb, API, MCP

Alternatives to oTranscribe (web)

Frequently asked about oTranscribe (web)

Is oTranscribe (web) free?

Yes. oTranscribe (web) is free.

Does oTranscribe (web) work on Mac, Windows and Linux?

oTranscribe (web) runs in the browser, so it works on any desktop OS with a modern browser, and on phones and tablets.

How do I get started with oTranscribe (web)?

There is nothing to install — oTranscribe (web) is used in the browser. Create an account on the vendor's site and upload or connect your audio.

What are the limitations of oTranscribe (web)?

Manual typing — no automatic transcription. No native diarization or auto-timestamping (manual hotkey insert).

Who is oTranscribe (web) best for?

Journalists and researchers transcribing interviews — audio never leaves the browser.

Is oTranscribe (web) open source?

No. oTranscribe (web) is a proprietary product from Elliot Bentley. If you need source you can read and run yourself, the open-source tools in this directory are the place to look.

Is there a oTranscribe (web) desktop app?

No — oTranscribe (web) is browser-only. There is nothing to install and nothing runs on your machine.

Where is the oTranscribe (web) source code?

On GitHub at github.com/oTranscribe/oTranscribe. It is maintained by Elliot Bentley.

What kind of tool is oTranscribe (web)?

In this directory oTranscribe (web) is filed under web app, manual transcription, on device as a product.

What are the alternatives to oTranscribe (web)?

There is a side-by-side page at /tools/otranscribe-web-alternatives comparing oTranscribe (web) with the closest tools in the same category on price, platform and features.

Can I automate oTranscribe (web)-style transcription without running it myself?

Yes. If what you want is transcripts rather than the tool itself, Whipscribe does the same job as a hosted API: submit a file or URL, poll a job id, pull the result as txt, json, srt, vtt or docx. $0.012 a minute — about $0.72 an audio hour — bought as credits that never expire. The automation recipes on this site show it wired to Drive folders, Zoom recordings, S3 buckets and no-code platforms.

How is Whipscribe different from oTranscribe (web)?

oTranscribe (web) is another vendor's product; Whipscribe is a per-minute transcription service. Recordings are transcribed on our own servers and never used for training, and every job returns five formats plus an AI summary, quotes and topics. The first 20 minutes of any recording are transcribed free, and a pack from $6 (500 minutes) transcribes the rest and opens every export.

What does transcription cost if I use Whipscribe instead of oTranscribe (web)?

$0.012 a minute — about $0.72 an audio hour — bought as credits that never expire. There is no subscription and no monthly minimum: a 3-hour recording is about $2.16, a thousand-hour archive is about $720 once. The first 20 minutes of any recording are transcribed free, and a pack from $6 (500 minutes) transcribes the rest and opens every export, so you can see what your recording holds before paying anything.

Where is the oTranscribe (web) category heading?

Three things are moving across the whole speech-to-text market right now: summaries, action items and speaker insights generated on top of the transcript rather than sold separately; private, secured deployment where the audio never leaves a boundary you control; and agent access — transcription exposed as a tool that Claude, Cursor or a workflow runner can call directly. Whipscribe ships all three today: per-job insights, our own servers, and an MCP server.

Whipscribe is a hosted transcription 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.

What we measured, last 30 days

2,547 recordings, 1,244 audio hours, 66 languages detected. An hour of audio came back in 3.5 minutes for half of the recordings and within 18.0 minutes for nine in ten, measured from the moment the file landed to the finished transcript. Refreshed 2026-10-07; method on how we test.

Transcribe your recordings

Explore

Long recording to get through?

One file up to 10 hours, as an upload or a link: see transcribing a long MP3 or M4A, a podcast episode as text from its link and an SRT subtitle file from any recording.

Rather have it done for you?

Free tools cost setup time. When you want a finished transcript instead: see how the best transcription services compare, the cheapest way to transcribe an hour of audio and transcription services from $6.