Horch vs WhisperAPI

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

	Horch Audio	WhisperAPI Audio
Tagline	Privacy-first, on-device meeting assistant for macOS	Hosted OpenAI Whisper transcription with a pay-as-you-go API and drop-in web dashboard.
Category	Audio	Audio
Pricing	Paid· One-time purchase: €49 once	Paid· 20 API Credits: $5 · 100 API Credits: $20 · 200 API Credits: $30 · Custom: $100.00
Model	Whisper (local) for transcription; optional Ollama / MLX local LLMs for summarization	OpenAI Whisper
Editorial score	—	6.9 / 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	audio-transcriptionvideo-subtitlesmultilingual-transcriptionpodcast-to-text
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	Hosted Whisper with no GPU or OpenAI key required Generous 10GB file size and 98+ language coverage Credits never expire and no monthly minimums Outputs JSON, VTT, DOCX, PDF out of the box
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	More expensive than self-hosting open-source Whisper No advertised diarization or real-time streaming Thin product surface - essentially a Whisper wrapper
Website	horch.app	whisper-api.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 WhisperAPI if

✅ Hosted Whisper with no GPU or OpenAI key required
✅ Generous 10GB file size and 98+ language coverage
✅ Credits never expire and no monthly minimums
✅ Outputs JSON, VTT, DOCX, PDF out of the box

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