head to head · open source
Handy vs Amical
Handy has 37,112 GitHub stars, 3,489 forks, 158 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Amical has 1,594 stars, 144 forks, 58 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. Handy leads on adoption by 2,228% (37,112 vs 1,594 stars). Handy is written in Rust under MIT; Amical is written in TypeScript under MIT. Handy has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Amical 9%. Handy 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.
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Side by side
| Handy | Amical | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 37K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 144 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Handy if
- You weight community size — 37K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Amical if
- You want the Amical feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Amical fits your workflow better
About Handy
Handy A free, open source, and extensible speech to text application that works completely offline. Handy is a cross platform desktop application that provides simple, privacy focused speech transcription. Press a shortcut, speak, and have your words appear in any text field. This happens on your own computer without sending any information to the cloud. Why Handy? Handy was created to fill the gap for a truly open source, extensible speech to text tool. As stated on handy.computer: Free : Accessibility tooling belongs in everyone's hands, not behind a paywall Open Source : Together we can build further. Extend…
read the full Handy overview →
About Amical
Website Docs Community Bug reports Table of Contents ⬇️ Download 🔮 Overview ✨ Features 🔰 Tech Stack Local Development 🤗 Contributing 🎗 License ⬇️ Download Homebrew (macOS) 🔮 Overview Local first AI Dictation app. Amical is an open source AI powered dictation and note taking app that runs entirely on your machine. Powered by Whisper for speech to text and open source LLMs for intelligent processing, Amical gives you the power of AI dictation with complete privacy. Context aware dictation that adapts to what you're doing: drafting an email, chatting on Discord, writing prompts in your IDE, or messaging…
read the full Amical overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Handy or Amical more popular?
Handy has 37,112 GitHub stars and Amical has 1,594. Handy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Handy and Amical free?
Both are open source. Handy is licensed under MIT and Amical under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Handy and Amical?
Handy is written in Rust and Amical in TypeScript. 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 Amical?
Choose Handy if you want the larger community (37,112 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Amical if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.