What is Buzz used for?

Buzz is a desktop app that transcribes and translates audio on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper models, with no cloud service involved. It is a good fit for transcribing interviews and meetings privately, translating foreign-language recordings, and turning podcasts or lectures into text.

Yes. Buzz is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at chidiwilliams/buzz and is written mainly in Python.

Yes. Buzz is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Buzz?

Yes. Buzz can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What is Buzz an alternative to?

Buzz is an open-source alternative to Otter.ai, Notta, Captions and Speechmatics. Other open-source alternatives to Otter.ai include Meetily, Call.md and Pluely.

Is Buzz actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Buzz was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v1.4.5, published on 23 August 2026. The project has 22k stars on GitHub.

Buzz: open-source alternative to Otter.ai, Notta, Captions

About Buzz

Buzz is a desktop application that turns recorded speech into text and translates it, all on the user's own computer. It builds on OpenAI's Whisper speech recognition models, so audio files do not have to be uploaded to a third-party transcription service. The project is written in Python and released under the MIT license.

The app is distributed for Windows, macOS and Linux. Windows users get an installer, Linux users can choose Flatpak, Snap or AppImage packages, and a PyPI package exists for people who prefer a pip-based setup with ffmpeg installed. Nvidia GPU acceleration through CUDA is supported for faster transcription, and recent releases require Apple silicon on Macs.

Because processing happens locally, Buzz suits people who handle sensitive recordings or want to avoid per-minute fees from cloud transcription services. It runs as a local program rather than a hosted service, so there is no account to create.

Key features

Offline audio transcription with Whisper models
Speech translation on the local machine
Installers for Windows, macOS and Linux
Flatpak, Snap and AppImage packages for Linux
Optional Nvidia CUDA GPU acceleration
Installable from PyPI with Python 3.12

Good fit for

→Transcribing interviews and meetings privately
→Translating foreign-language recordings
→Turning podcasts or lectures into text

Built with: Python
Tags: transcription; speech-to-text; whisper; translation; offline; desktop; privacy

Buzz: questions and answers

What is Buzz used for?: Buzz is a desktop app that transcribes and translates audio on your own computer using OpenAI's Whisper models, with no cloud service involved. It is a good fit for transcribing interviews and meetings privately, translating foreign-language recordings, and turning podcasts or lectures into text.
Is Buzz open source?: Yes. Buzz is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at chidiwilliams/buzz and is written mainly in Python.
Is Buzz free?: Yes. Buzz is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Buzz?: Yes. Buzz can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What is Buzz an alternative to?: Buzz is an open-source alternative to Otter.ai, Notta, Captions and Speechmatics. Other open-source alternatives to Otter.ai include Meetily, Call.md and Pluely.
Is Buzz actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Buzz was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v1.4.5, published on 23 August 2026. The project has 22k stars on GitHub.