Memoe vs MacWhisper
Jude Mercer, SEO and Content, Memoe — 20 October 2026
Memoe is an agent you talk to, and it talks back. It lives in your Mac's notch instead of in a chat window, so you can talk to it from whatever app you're in. It runs on the AI you already pay for — your Claude subscription through Claude Code, or your ChatGPT plan — so there's no new model to buy. Underneath, it runs Hermes Agent, the open-source agent harness from Nous Research, and it keeps a memory of you in plain files on your Mac that you can read, edit and delete.
Hold one key from any app, say what you need, and Moe answers out loud and goes and does it. It connects to around 1,400 services, and it has its own browser, signed in as you. You can message Moe over Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, email, Signal and LINE. Before Moe sends anything to another person it shows you exactly what will go out and waits for your click. About 2 to 5 seconds before it speaks.
What MacWhisper is
MacWhisper transcribes audio into text; Memoe is an agent you talk to that talks back and works your Mac apps itself. Its own site describes it as “the all-in-one Mac app to transcribe it all” — lectures, videos, podcasts and private files dragged in and dropped — and says it “also records all your online meetings. No bots joining.” A system-wide dictation mode lets you “use your voice in any app.” Its feature list adds automatic speaker recognition (“instantly distinguish and label different speakers in your recordings”), support for “over 100 languages,” automatic filler-word cleanup, and AI add-ons — summarise, chat and custom prompts — driven by a provider you connect: OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, xAI, Azure, DeepSeek, Google or OpenRouter, or a local model through Ollama or LM Studio. Its own copy says “we use local models to transcribe your files, so it's perfect for your most sensitive and private files,” and processes “sensitive content locally without data ever leaving your Mac.” It is free at €0 a month, “free forever,” with a one-time €64 Pro licence that “includes lifetime updates.” It is built by Jordi Bruin, named as the product's brand in its own Gumroad product listing. Everything in this paragraph and in the right-hand column below comes from macwhisper.com and goodsnooze.gumroad.com/l/macwhisper — their own page text, and the schema.org/Product data the Gumroad page publishes in its own markup — read 20 October 2026.
Side by side
Memoe's column is the live, Approved wording from docs.memoe.app today.
| Memoe | MacWhisper | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | An agent you talk to from any app, that answers out loud and does the work. | Transcription: audio, video and system audio turned into text on your Mac — “the all-in-one Mac app to transcribe it all.” |
| What comes back | A spoken answer, and the task carried out — mail and calendar read, a meeting noted, a Mac app driven for you. | A text transcript, exportable as subtitles (.srt, .vtt) or a document (.txt, .md, .pdf, .html, .docx), with speakers labelled and filler words removed automatically. |
| Meeting notes | Taken on your Mac. Nothing joins the call. | Recorded automatically in Zoom, Teams, Webex, Skype, Chime and Discord, with “no bots joining” either, by its own description. |
| Custom prompts | A memory of you, kept in plain files on your disk you can read, edit and delete. | Ready-to-use or custom AI prompts you write, applied to enhance a transcription when you run it. |
| Where your speech is processed | “Speech recognition runs on your Mac using local models, and audio is not stored after it is transcribed. On the free tier your voice does not leave your Mac.” | “We use local models to transcribe your files, so it's perfect for your most sensitive and private files,” processing “sensitive content locally without data ever leaving your Mac,” by its own description. |
| The thinking | Your own Claude or ChatGPT plan, an API key, or a model on your Mac, driving Hermes Agent. Not resold, not marked up. | Transcription runs on Whisper and Parakeet, and — per its Gumroad listing — Qwen. Its AI add-ons run on a provider you connect: OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, xAI, Azure, DeepSeek, Google or OpenRouter, or a local model through Ollama or LM Studio. |
| What it runs on | An Apple silicon Mac, macOS 15 or later. | macOS; its own site also lists a separate iOS & iPad version among its FAQ topics. |
| Price | Free on the Mac. Away, from $20 a month, is a cloud computer of your own that keeps going when the Mac is shut; Away+ is $50 a month. | Free: €0 a month, “free forever.” Pro: a one-time €64 licence, “includes lifetime updates,” by its own pricing section. |
Trying Memoe
Memoe is a free Mac app, and everything that runs on your Mac is free. It needs an Apple silicon Mac on macOS 15 or later. It is signed and notarized by Apple and it updates itself. It is beta, built by one person, so expect a few rough edges.
See also: Memoe vs Superwhisper and Memoe vs Wispr Flow.