FreeFlow vs FreeFlow by Zach Latta
Yes, there are two Mac dictation apps called FreeFlow. Here is which one you are looking at.
Two different Mac dictation apps are called FreeFlow, which is confusing, and pretending otherwise would be worse than addressing it. This page exists to sort out which one you have found.
This site is FreeFlow at freeflow.audio: a paid app, $99 once, that runs speech models on your Mac's Neural Engine with no network connection required.
The other is FreeFlow by Zach Latta at freeflow.zachlatta.com — free, open source, and a genuinely nice piece of work. It sends your audio to whichever transcription and LLM provider you configure, using your own API keys.
The names collided by accident. Neither project is affiliated with the other.
The actual difference: where transcription happens
Zach's FreeFlow has no server of its own, which is a real privacy property — there is no company holding your data. But it does make API calls out to your configured provider, typically Groq or OpenAI. Your audio leaves your machine; it just goes somewhere you chose rather than somewhere he runs.
This FreeFlow makes no API calls for transcription at all. WhisperKit and NVIDIA Parakeet CoreML models run on the Neural Engine. Turn Wi-Fi off and it still types — that is the test that separates the two.
Free with keys, versus paid without
Zach's is free to download, and you pay a transcription provider per use — pennies for light use, and it scales with how much you talk. You will also need to obtain an API key and keep it working.
This one is $99 once with nothing else to configure. After the model download there is no key, no account, no per-use cost and no provider to sign up with.
Which one should you use
If you are comfortable managing an API key and your audio going to Groq or OpenAI is fine for your work, his is free and open source and you should use it. That is a straightforwardly good deal and we are not going to argue you out of it.
If you want dictation that works with the network off, holds no keys, and has no per-use cost — that is what the $99 buys, and it is the only real reason to choose this one.
Pick FreeFlow by Zach Latta instead if…
- You want free and open source, and you are happy managing your own API keys.
- You want to read and modify the code — this one is not open source.
- Sending audio to Groq or OpenAI is acceptable for the work you do.
- You would rather pay pennies per use than $99 up front.
The verdict
Two good apps that happen to share a name. His is free, open source, and cloud-backed through your own API keys. This one is $99 once and never touches the network after the model download. Pick on that axis — offline and key-free, or free and open — because it is the only difference that will change how your day goes.
Questions people actually ask
Are these the same app?
No. Completely separate projects that ended up with the same name. This is freeflow.audio; the open-source one is freeflow.zachlatta.com and github.com/zachlatta/freeflow.
Is the open-source FreeFlow also on-device?
No. It has no server of its own, but it calls out to a transcription provider you configure with your own API key — usually Groq or OpenAI. Your audio leaves your Mac.
Why pay $99 when the other one is free?
For offline operation, no API keys to manage, and no per-use cost. If none of those matter to you, use the free one.