Horch vs Sesame

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

	Horch Audio	Sesame Audio
Tagline	Privacy-first, on-device meeting assistant for macOS	Conversational voice AI aiming to cross the uncanny valley with context-aware, emotionally aware speech.
Category	Audio	Audio
Pricing	Paid· One-time purchase: €49 once	Free· Free research preview; consumer product pricing not announced
Model	Whisper (local) for transcription; optional Ollama / MLX local LLMs for summarization	Sesame CSM (1B / 3B / 8B)
Editorial score	—	8.0 / 10
Use cases	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	conversational-voicetext-to-speechvoice-agentsambient-ai
Pros	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	Open-source weights under Apache 2.0 for the CSM speech model Distinctly natural, context-aware prosody compared to typical TTS Backed by serious original research with published benchmarks Free research preview available at app.sesame.com
Cons	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	No public commercial API - you self-host the open weights Pricing and productisation still vague; consumer app is invite-only Hardware (AI glasses) not shipping until 2027 Small model catalogue focused on English voice quality
Website	horch.app	www.sesame.com

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

Pick Sesame if

✅ Open-source weights under Apache 2.0 for the CSM speech model
✅ Distinctly natural, context-aware prosody compared to typical TTS
✅ Backed by serious original research with published benchmarks
✅ Free research preview available at app.sesame.com

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