A private alternative to Wispr Flow.
Wispr Flow and Viska do the same everyday job: you speak, and polished text appears where your cursor is. The difference is where your voice goes. Wispr Flow transcribes in its cloud. Viska turns speech into text on your own devices, and with host mode your own GPU becomes a private dictation service for your laptop and your Android phone. It is free, open source (GPL-3.0-or-later), and needs no account or subscription.
Facts about Wispr Flow were checked on 30 September 2026 against Wispr’s own pricing, data-controls and security pages. Prices and features change, so follow the sources for the current state.
At a glance
| Viska | Wispr Flow | |
|---|---|---|
| Where your voice goes | Stays on your devices. With host mode it goes only to your own computer, over your private Tailscale network. A cloud engine only if you add your own key. | To Wispr’s cloud: “Transcription always occurs on the cloud. This is the best way for us to provide accurate, low latency transcription.” source |
| Where speech is turned into text | On your computer, with Whisper models, or on your own host computer’s GPU. | In the cloud: “Wispr Flow processes dictated audio in the cloud to turn speech into text.” source |
| Works offline | Yes, once a model is downloaded. | No offline mode is documented. source |
| Stored data and training | Nothing is sent to us: no account and no telemetry. Audio stays in memory unless you save a recording; history is off unless you turn it on. | “The service processes and stores customer data in the United States.” You can control whether Wispr stores your transcripts, audio and history, and whether your data may be used to improve its models. source source |
| Price | Free and open source (GPL-3.0-or-later). No word limit. | Free plan: 2,000 words a week on desktop, 1,000 a week on mobile. Pro: $15 per user per month, or $12 billed yearly. Growth: $23, or $18 billed yearly. source |
| Computers | macOS (Apple Silicon), Windows 11 x64 (preview), Linux (Debian/Ubuntu, Arch). | Mac and Windows. Linux is not in its list. source |
| Phone | Android, with Viska Voice: a voice keyboard whose speech is transcribed on your own computer. No iPhone app. | iOS and Android apps, processed in the cloud. source |
| Use a desktop GPU from a laptop or phone | Yes. Host mode shares your own GPU privately over Tailscale with your other computers and your Android phone. Host mode and the Remote GPU client are in 0.7.0 for Linux and macOS; Windows gets them in a later build. | Not applicable: transcription happens in Wispr’s cloud. |
| Languages | Nine languages plus automatic detection, with a KB-Whisper specialist for Swedish. | More than 100 languages. source |
| Cleaning up what you said | Grammar or Intuitive proofreading, run locally with Ollama or in the cloud with your own key. | Learns names and jargon, with a personal dictionary and snippets. source |
| Security paperwork | GPL-3.0 licensed; the source code is available on request. No formal certification. | SOC 2 and ISO 27001 documentation; HIPAA-ready dictation with a signed BAA. source |
What “private” means here
By default, your audio never leaves your computer: Viska transcribes locally with Whisper, offline once a model is downloaded. Three things can change that, and each is your choice. With host mode, audio goes only to your own host computer over your private Tailscale network. If you add a cloud speech engine such as Groq or OpenAI with your own key, audio goes to that provider. If you turn on cloud proofreading, only the transcribed text, not the audio, is sent, and we recommend Ollama Cloud or OpenRouter with Zero Data Retention switched on. Ollama states it does not log or train on prompts and responses.
Wispr Flow says it keeps zero-data-retention agreements with its third-party AI providers and lets you choose whether your data improves its models (wisprflow.ai/data-controls). Its audio is still sent to its cloud, because that is where transcription happens.
Your own GPU, for your laptop and your phone
Run Viska in host mode on the computer with the strong graphics card, publish it with tailscale serve, and pair your other devices with a QR code. A laptop chooses the Remote GPU engine; an Android phone uses Viska Voice. The host listens only on localhost, every request needs a bearer token, and it does not log audio or text. A cloud dictation app cannot offer this, because its transcribing happens in its own cloud. How host mode works.
When Viska is the better fit
You dictate things that should not leave your devices: patient notes, legal drafts, business plans, private messages. You want dictation on a plane or behind a strict firewall. You use Linux. Or you simply dictate a lot and do not want a subscription or a weekly word cap.
Viska keeps the part that makes Wispr Flow pleasant — a gesture, your voice, text at the cursor in any app — and moves the work onto your own hardware. Apple Silicon uses Metal, NVIDIA cards use CUDA, and compatible AMD graphics use Vulkan on Linux, so local transcription stays quick.
When Wispr Flow is the better fit
You need dictation on an iPhone, or on a phone without your own computer as host. You dictate in a language Viska does not cover, or you work across a company that wants signed contracts, compliance reports and central administration. Wispr Flow also learns your names and jargon over time, with a personal dictionary and snippets, which Viska does not do.
Moving from Wispr Flow to Viska
- Download Viska for your system and open it.
- The introduction asks which languages you dictate in and recommends a model for your computer.
- Put the cursor in any app and double-press the left ⌘ on a Mac, or press CtrlAltD on Windows and Linux.
- For Wispr-style cleanup, turn on proofreading and choose Intuitive. It runs locally with Ollama, or with DeepSeek on Ollama Cloud, which Ollama states does not log or train on your text.
Wispr Flow is a trademark of its owner. Viska is not affiliated with or endorsed by Wispr Flow.