AssemblyAI vs Horch

A side-by-side look at pricing, capabilities, pros, cons, and our editorial scores.

	AssemblyAI Audio	Horch Audio
Tagline	Speech-to-text API with diarisation, summarisation, and topic detection.	Privacy-first, on-device meeting assistant for macOS
Category	Audio	Audio
Pricing	Freemium· Pre-recorded Speech-to-Text API: $0.21 /hr · Universal-2: $0.15 /hr · Realtime Speech-to-Text API: $0.45 /hr · Universal-Streaming: $0.15 /hr · Universal-Streaming Multilingual: $0.15 /hr	Paid· One-time purchase: €49 once
Model	Universal / Slam-1	Whisper (local) for transcription; optional Ollama / MLX local LLMs for summarization
Editorial score	8.7 / 10	—
Use cases	transcriptiondiarisationpodcast indexing	Confidential client meeting transcriptionAutomatic action-item extractionPer-contact relationship historyPre-meeting briefings from prior callsLocal Whisper transcription without cloud uploadFeeding meeting context into Claude or Cursor via MCPPersonal second-brain in MarkdownLegal, medical, or NDA-bound conversation notes
Pros	High accuracy Strong streaming API Lots of post-processing features Excellent SDKs and docs	Fully on-device by default — audio and transcripts never leave the Mac unless the user opts in One-time €49 purchase instead of a recurring per-seat SaaS bill Records at OS level so no bot appears in the meeting and any app (Zoom, Meet, Teams, in-person) works Notes stored as plain Markdown in ~/Meetings — portable, greppable, Obsidian-friendly Auto-generates action items, topic summaries, and per-person profiles from spoken content MCP server exposes meeting history to Claude, Cursor, and other agent clients Local Whisper transcription plus optional Ollama/MLX means you pick the summarizer
Cons	More expensive than Whisper for high volume Latency varies	macOS only — no Windows, Linux, iOS, or web client Local Whisper and summarization need a reasonably modern Apple Silicon Mac to feel fast No cloud sync or team workspace, so sharing across a team requires bring-your-own storage Small independent product without the integrations catalog of Fireflies, Otter, or Fathom OS-level capture depends on macOS screen/audio permissions, which some corporate MDM setups block
Website	www.assemblyai.com	horch.app

Pick AssemblyAI if

✅ High accuracy
✅ Strong streaming API
✅ Lots of post-processing features
✅ Excellent SDKs and docs

Pick Horch if

✅ Fully on-device by default — audio and transcripts never leave the Mac unless the user opts in
✅ One-time €49 purchase instead of a recurring per-seat SaaS bill
✅ Records at OS level so no bot appears in the meeting and any app (Zoom, Meet, Teams, in-person) works
✅ Notes stored as plain Markdown in ~/Meetings — portable, greppable, Obsidian-friendly

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