SnailText is a desktop voice dictation app for Mac and Windows that turns speech into text in any application — code editor, Slack, browser, email, terminal. Press the global hotkey, speak, and the text appears at your cursor in the active app. No browser extension. No per-app integration. One hotkey, every text field.
What makes SnailText different from cloud-based dictation tools is that all speech recognition happens on the user's device. Audio is processed in RAM using locally-installed Whisper and Parakeet TDT v3 models, never uploaded to a server, and discarded the moment transcription completes. This makes SnailText suitable for professional contexts where source code, customer data, internal architecture, NDA-bound material, or sensitive communications cannot be sent to third-party clouds.
Built for knowledge workers: developers dictating commit messages, PR descriptions, and Slack threads; product managers writing status updates and meeting notes; writers drafting at speaking speed; vibe-coders speaking prompts to AI agents like Cursor, Claude Code, and GitHub Copilot.
Key features:
• System-wide hotkey dictation — works in every text field across all apps
• 100+ languages supported via Whisper, with high accuracy on technical vocabulary
• Custom dictionary for product names, jargon, and proper nouns
• Voice-triggered snippets for repeated text (email signatures, standup templates, etc.)
• GPU acceleration (Vulkan on Windows, Metal/Apple Silicon on Mac) for sub-second latency
• Offline mode — works without internet connectivity
• History with full-text search
Pricing: free tier with unlimited use on compact Whisper models (no account, no card, no time limit). Pro subscription at $7.49/month or $89/year covers up to 3 devices per plan — fairer for individuals running multiple machines than per-seat licensing. 30-day money-back guarantee.
Technical foundations: Tauri 2.x (Rust + native WebView), whisper.cpp for Whisper inference, NVIDIA Parakeet TDT v3 for English-prioritized accuracy and voice activity detection. Native binaries for macOS (Apple Silicon) and Windows (x64).
