Both apps put Whisper to work, but they aren't really the same product. Shruvi is a hold-to-talk dictation app that pastes clean text into any focused app. MacWhisper is a local Mac GUI built mainly to transcribe audio and video files. This page is for figuring out which one matches your actual workflow.
Shruvi: macOS 13+ and Windows 10/11. MacWhisper: macOS only.
Pricing
Shruvi: free, no word limits, no credit card. MacWhisper: free tier plus paid one-time license tiers (pricing as published on the MacWhisper page, as of 2026-05).
Speech model
Shruvi: Groq-hosted whisper-large-v3-turbo (cloud, batched). MacWhisper: local Whisper variants running on-device, with optional cloud Whisper providers.
AI cleanup
Shruvi: built-in gpt-4o-mini cleanup of every utterance. MacWhisper: AI summary and reformatting features in Pro tiers.
Push-to-talk
Shruvi: primary mode — hold a hotkey, speak, paste. MacWhisper: primarily file transcription; live dictation is supported but not the headline feature.
Open source
Neither app is fully open source; MacWhisper bundles Whisper for local use.
Privacy model
Shruvi: audio is sent to the cloud and not retained after transcription. MacWhisper: audio can stay fully on-device when you use a local model.
Languages
Shruvi: ~99 languages via Whisper. MacWhisper: 100+ languages via Whisper.
In Shruvi's favor
Where Shruvi is better
Built for live dictation, not files. Shruvi's whole UX is hold-the-hotkey-and-talk. The text appears in whatever app is focused — Slack, your IDE, your email client, your terminal.
Cross-platform. Shruvi has a real Windows installer in addition to macOS, so you can keep the same workflow on a work laptop and a personal machine.
Free with no word cap. No Pro upgrade, no per-minute limits, no recurring license check.
Always the biggest Whisper model. Because Groq runs it server-side, you don't have to pick a smaller local model to keep your fans quiet.
In MacWhisper's favor
Where MacWhisper is better
File and meeting transcription. Drag in an mp3, mp4, or m4a and you get a transcript with speakers, timestamps, and edit tooling. Shruvi cannot do this.
Fully offline option. Local Whisper means audio never leaves your machine, which matters for sensitive recordings or restricted environments.
One-time purchase. If you prefer owning a license outright instead of relying on a free hosted service, MacWhisper offers that.
Decision guide
Which one should you pick?
Pick Shruvi if your primary need is live dictation — typing emails, code comments, Slack messages, or notes by voice. Hold the hotkey, talk, release, and the cleaned-up text is pasted into whatever app you're in. It's also the right pick if you switch between macOS and Windows.
Pick MacWhisper if you mostly transcribe existing audio or video, want to do that work entirely offline on your Mac, and are happy paying once for a desktop license. The two apps actually complement each other well: live dictation in Shruvi, file transcription in MacWhisper.
MacWhisper is primarily a local Whisper GUI for transcribing audio and video files on a Mac. It does include dictation features, but its center of gravity is post-hoc transcription — Shruvi is built for hold-the-hotkey, paste-into-any-app dictation.
Does Shruvi work on Windows like MacWhisper does?
Shruvi ships native macOS and Windows builds. MacWhisper, as the name suggests, is macOS-only.
Is MacWhisper free?
MacWhisper has a free tier and paid Pro tiers (one-time purchase, with separate license keys for upgrade features). Shruvi is fully free with no word limits.
Can I transcribe a meeting recording with Shruvi?
Shruvi is built for live dictation, not file uploads. If your main use case is transcribing existing audio or video, MacWhisper or another file-first tool is the better fit.