head to head · open source
Handy vs FluidVoice
Handy has 31,791 GitHub stars, 2,896 forks, 158 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. FluidVoice has 11,611 stars, 828 forks, 89 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Handy leads on adoption by 174% (31,791 vs 11,611 stars). Handy is written in Rust under MIT; FluidVoice is written in Swift under GPL-3.0. Handy has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, FluidVoice 7%. FluidVoice was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Handy | FluidVoice | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 12K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 828 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Handy if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick FluidVoice if
- You want the FluidVoice feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and FluidVoice fits your workflow better
About Handy
Handy is a cross platform desktop application for offline speech to text transcription. It runs entirely on the user’s machine, capturing audio via microphone input and converting speech to text using local machine learning models without any cloud dependency. Built with Tauri and Rust, it targets Windows, macOS, and Linux, and emphasizes simplicity, privacy, and extensibility over raw accuracy or feature breadth.
read the full Handy overview →
About FluidVoice
FluidVoice is an open source voice dictation app for macOS under GPL 3.0. It uses on device speech recognition and a local AI enhancement layer to turn spoken input into text inside other applications. The project lives in the macOS and Swift ecosystem, with Homebrew installation, menu bar integration, and accessibility based text insertion.
read the full FluidVoice overview →
More in Productivity & Utilities
Related comparisons
More Input & Dictation projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Input & Dictation field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Handy or FluidVoice more popular?
Handy has 31,791 GitHub stars and FluidVoice has 11,611. Handy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Handy and FluidVoice free?
Both are open source. Handy is licensed under MIT and FluidVoice under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Handy and FluidVoice?
Handy is written in Rust and FluidVoice in Swift. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Handy or FluidVoice?
Choose Handy if you want the larger community (31,791 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose FluidVoice if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.