Enzo vs MacWhisper
A MacWhisper alternative built for live work.
Enzo is your own AI assistant for Mac. Dictation, meeting recording, speaker labels and meeting notes are free, and capture runs on your Mac. Chat answers from your own work with cloud AI, and Plus adds all your history, Medium and High effort, about 6× the AI usage and sending for $10 a month.
Respect first, then the difference.
MacWhisper deserves its following. It brought serious local transcription to the Mac, and as a workbench for audio and video files it’s genuinely good: drag in a recording, pick a model, get a transcript. Both apps keep your audio on your machine, so this isn’t a privacy story.
Where Enzo is different
Unlimited free voice typing
Speak into the Mac apps you already use. Free has no word limit or expiry, and keeps your recordings, transcripts and speaker labels.
Help throughout your day
Ask a question, attach a document, use your current screen, or draft a follow-up. Chat answers from your own work and shows its sources.
Meetings you can revisit
Enzo records meeting audio on your Mac without a bot, with separate speaker labels. On every plan it writes notes after your meetings, a brief before them and follow-ups after them.
Recall is your choice
Opt in to let Enzo remember what you worked on. Recall stays encrypted on your Mac, and you can pause it or delete it any time.
Private by design
Transcription and Recall run on your Mac, and your history is stored only there. Chat sends only the context a question needs to Enzo’s cloud AI. Enzo’s service keeps none of it, and the AI provider keeps it only briefly to check for abuse.
Free, or Plus for $10
Free has no time limit. Plus adds all your history, Medium and High effort, about 6× the AI usage and replies sent from Enzo, with a 14-day free trial. Cancel anytime.
Type at the speed of sound.
Dictation that keeps up: press a key, talk, press again, and the text lands at your cursor in any app.
ToJuno
SubjectRevised timeline
Side by side
As of June 2026. Check macwhisper.com for their current plans.
| Feature | Enzo | MacWhisper |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free; Plus $10/mo; Pro $20/mo | Free tier; Pro €59 once; Pro Max $149 |
| Built around | AI assistant: voice typing, meetings, and work context | Transcribing audio and video files |
| Speaker identification | Separates speakers and recognizes saved profiles | Labels speakers within a file (Pro) |
| Dictation | Hotkey to cursor, in any app, core feature | Available, in a file-first app |
| Configuration | Guided model downloads and permissions | Model picker and settings |
| Free option | Unlimited voice typing, meetings and speaker labels | Free tier with smaller models |
What MacWhisper does better
Files are its home turf
Drag in interviews, podcasts, lectures, video, whole folders, even YouTube links. If your week is a backlog of recordings to transcribe, MacWhisper is the right workbench, and Enzo doesn’t try to be one.
More export formats and extras
Subtitle and document export formats, batch processing, AI summaries through local or API models. The power-user surface is genuinely larger.
Two permanent free options
MacWhisper’s free version works indefinitely with smaller models. Enzo’s Free plan keeps unlimited dictation, meeting recording and speaker labels with no time limit.
If your transcription work is a folder of files, stay with the workbench, honestly. If it's the meetings and messages of a working day, that's the job I built Enzo for.
Questions, answered.
What is free in Enzo?
Free has no time limit: unlimited dictation in any app, even offline; unlimited meeting recording with no bot, and who said what by name; notes, briefs and follow-ups; answers at Low effort about your meetings, apps and work from today and your last working day; every connected app; replies drafted for you to copy; and AI usage that renews every 5 hours, within a weekly limit. Your history stays on your Mac.
What does Plus add?
Answers from all your history, Medium and High effort, about 6× Free’s AI usage, and replies and messages sent from Enzo. Plus is $10 a month or $100 a year, with a 14-day free trial.
How does the Plus trial work?
Start it from Enzo, in Settings, Plan. Checkout asks for a card and charges nothing today. Plus is yours for 14 days, then your card is charged unless you cancel before the trial ends.
What stays on my Mac, and what uses the internet?
Recordings, transcripts, chats and Recall stay on your Mac, and transcription runs there, so dictation and recording work offline. Enzo uses the internet to sign you in, download models and updates, search the web, send anonymous usage statistics you can turn off, and run its AI features, which send text, never audio, through Enzo’s service to an AI provider. Enzo’s service keeps none of it, and the provider keeps it only briefly to check for abuse.
How is recording history different from Recall?
Saved recordings stay in Speak on every plan. Recall is a separate, optional timeline of the apps and text you worked with, encrypted on your Mac and deleted after 30 days unless you choose another period. On Free, Chat’s answers reach today and your last working day; Plus and Pro reach all your history.
Coming soon to your Mac.
Free, with no time limit. Try Plus free for 14 days when you want more.
Coming soonFor Macs with Apple silicon on macOS 15 or later.