Sotto

Sotto is a native macOS voice-to-text dictation tool built by indie developer Kitze. It uses a global hotkey push-to-talk model to capture speech and instantly insert transcribed text into any active application — no clipboard, no copy-paste. The app is sold as a one-time purchase and runs entirely on-device by default, with optional cloud model support.

What It Is

Sotto is a system-wide dictation layer for macOS. Users hold or tap a customizable hotkey to start recording, speak naturally, and the transcribed text is auto-pasted directly into whatever app is in focus — Xcode, Slack, Notes, a browser text field, or anything else. The core transcription engine is WhisperKit, running locally on Apple's Neural Engine, so audio never leaves the device unless the user opts into a cloud provider.

Local-First Architecture

The default setup runs entirely offline using WhisperKit models ranging from Tiny (~66 MB) to Large V3 Turbo (~954 MB) and Distil Large V3 (~800 MB). Sotto also supports NVIDIA Parakeet models (v2 English at 2.6 GB and v3 Multilingual at 2.7 GB) for state-of-the-art accuracy. For users who want maximum accuracy or have strong accents, optional cloud backends include OpenAI (gpt-4o-mini-transcribe) and Groq (Whisper Large V3 Turbo), billed at approximately $0.006/minute through the user's own API key.

Key Capabilities

• Push-to-talk or toggle mode — hold to speak and release to insert, or tap once to start/stop
• Auto-paste — transcripts appear directly in the active app without manual copying
• Recording history — every session saved locally with timestamps, full-text search, and audio playback
• Re-transcribe — switch models after the fact to improve accuracy on any saved recording
• Audio file import — drag and drop voice memos, meeting recordings, or podcast episodes for transcription
• Custom vocabulary — add technical terms, names, and jargon as hints for better accuracy
• Always-on rules — automatic grammar fixing, filler word removal, smart punctuation, and professional tone rewriting applied to every transcription
• AI Functions — one-click post-processing via OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, Groq, Mistral, or Grok to transform dictation into emails, coding prompts, summaries, translations, or custom outputs
• 90+ language support — per-language hotkeys and auto-detect mode for multilingual use

Platform and System Requirements

Sotto is a native Swift and SwiftUI app built exclusively for macOS 13 (Ventura) and later. It uses Apple's Neural Engine for fast local inference, making it lightweight relative to the model sizes. A license key is delivered by email and covers up to 3 Mac activations.

Why It Stands Out

The homepage explicitly positions Sotto against subscription-based Whisper wrappers, arguing that paying a recurring fee for a model that is freely available is unnecessary. The one-time purchase model with lifetime updates and 3-device coverage is the central differentiator the product page emphasizes. The developer, Kitze, is also known for Sizzy (a developer browser), Benji, and other indie macOS and web tools.