A new open-source contender has entered the AI dictation space. Amical is a local-first, MIT-licensed dictation and note-taking app that runs speech recognition and language processing directly on your machine, using models such as Whisper and open-source LLMs. The app, available now for Mac and Windows with mobile versions on the roadmap, positions itself as a privacy-focused free alternative to paid tools like Wispr Flow (which charges $15/month for its Pro tier after an $81M raise) and Granola.
What sets Amical apart is its context-aware formatting engine. The app detects which application you're currently using and adjusts its output accordingly, professional email structure when dictating in Gmail, casual tone for Slack or Discord, clean prompt formatting when working in an IDE like Cursor or Claude Code, and even command-style output in terminal windows. Users can also define custom prompts per application to fine-tune how their speech gets transformed. Additional features include:
- Custom vocabulary for domain-specific jargon
- A floating push-to-talk widget
- Configurable hotkeys
- A notes workflow for capturing and reusing voice snippets
The local-first approach means voice data and transcriptions never leave the user's device by default, which could appeal to developers, legal professionals, and anyone handling sensitive information. For machines that can't handle local inference, Amical also offers a free cloud fallback. The one-click model setup lowers the barrier compared to manually configuring Whisper or Vosk, which typically requires technical knowledge.
Give it a try at amical.ai
On the roadmap, the team has flagged iOS and Android apps for hands-free mobile dictation, meeting transcription capabilities, and MCP integration to enable commanding other tools via the Model Context Protocol, a feature that could tie Amical into the broader agentic AI ecosystem and gain traction across platforms. The project is community-driven and available on GitHub, making it worth watching for anyone looking to replace subscription dictation tools with something they fully control.
