Transcription that stays on your hardware.
For you, or your whole office. LymeScribe runs Whisper-class speech models on a machine you own — your own computer for a handful of people, or a dedicated box for the office. Not a cloud you rent. The audio never leaves the building.
Free as a client · paid hosting on your own computer or a dedicated office server · nothing uploaded, ever
Both run on hardware you own. Pick the one that fits the room.
The free app connects to any LymeScribe server — that's the on-ramp. When you're ready to host, there are exactly two ways, and the only question is how many people you're serving.
Your own computer doubles as the server.
You and a handful of people on your network — off the computer you already own.
- A paid unlock in the same app — no extra hardware
- Embedded Whisper — runs on your CPU, GPU-accelerated when you have one — serves ~3 peers on your LAN
- One-time purchase, runs entirely on-device
A dedicated machine for the whole office.
An always-on box that serves your whole team — built to scale past a few peers.
- GPU-accelerated — real-time transcription at office speed
- Built for many concurrent users, no peer cap
- Windows/NVIDIA or Apple Silicon, on your LAN
When the server is yours, the rules are yours.
The popular dictation tools are genuinely good — and genuinely cloud-hosted. Every word crosses the internet to a server you don't control, governed by terms you didn't write and they can change. The price is monthly rent for as long as you keep talking.
Owning the hardware flips every line of that deal. The audio never leaves the building, so privacy stops being a policy you have to trust and becomes a fact of where the machine sits. No account. No per-seat bill. Nothing to keep paying for.
Modern hardware made this practical. A recent Mac or Windows PC runs Whisper-class models right on the CPU — a GPU (Apple Metal or NVIDIA CUDA) just makes the bigger models real-time-fast. So a computer you already own can be the server, and a dedicated box can serve the whole office. Either way, it's your hardware.
A serious dictation tool that happens to respect you.
Push-to-talk, anywhere
Tucks into the menu bar on Mac, the system tray on Windows. Hit a hotkey, speak, and the text lands in whatever app you're in — keystrokes or clipboard paste, configurable per app.
Whisper, on your hardware
Runs OpenAI's Whisper models natively on the computer you own — the same model family the big cloud services build on, so the accuracy comes with it. Metal on Mac and CUDA on Windows make the larger models real-time-fast. No API, no per-minute fees.
Your history, your disk
Every transcription saved locally, searchable, exportable. Not synced to anyone's cloud unless you put it there yourself.
Corrections dictionary
Teach it your jargon, names, and acronyms once. Corrections apply automatically — and stay on your machine like everything else.
Host it yourself: your computer is the server
A hosting unlock turns the Mac or PC you already own into a private transcription server for a few trusted devices on your network. One good machine serves them all.
Server: scale to the office
LymeScribe Server runs on your own Windows/NVIDIA or Apple Silicon box — GPU-accelerated for real-time speed, serving many people at once on your LAN with no peer cap.
Drop a recording in. Get back who said what.
Dictation is only half the product. Drag any audio file — a meeting, an interview, a voicemail — onto LymeScribe and it transcribes the whole recording as a batch job, on your hardware, while you keep working.
Speaker labeling tells the voices apart. Diarization runs alongside transcription, so a one-hour meeting comes back as a readable script — each line attributed to the person who said it — instead of a wall of undifferentiated text. Play a snippet of each voice back and type the real name once: "Speaker 1" becomes Maya everywhere in the transcript. Searchable, exportable, saved to your disk.
Batch transcription and speaker labeling are part of hosting, and like everything else they run entirely on your machine — the recording never leaves the building. Speaker labeling wants a capable machine; see system requirements.
What to expect: on Mac, Apple Silicon M2 or later with 16 GB+ memory is recommended — earlier or 8 GB machines work, but expect much longer processing times. On Windows, speaker labels require an NVIDIA GPU; transcript-only works on any 64-bit PC, though CPU-only processing is slow (a one-hour meeting can take several hours).
Start free. Host when you're ready.
Free as a client, forever. The two paid tiers are both about hosting — the only difference is scale.
Client
The on-ramp. Connect to any LymeScribe server.
- Connect to any LymeScribe server on your network
- Full dictation experience — hotkeys, history, corrections
- No account, no trial clock, no catch
Host
Your own computer doubles as the server. You and a few people.
- Host transcription on your own computer — fully on-device
- Serve yourself + a few devices on your network
- Pays for itself in about four months vs. $10/mo cloud dictation
- 7-day free trial, full features — no credit card
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Server
A dedicated machine for your whole practice.
- Always-on server for your whole practice — on your hardware
- GPU-accelerated for real-time speed at scale, no peer cap
- Batch jobs and speaker labeling for the whole team
- Windows/NVIDIA or Apple Silicon
Server
A dedicated machine for your whole practice.
- Always-on server for your whole practice — on your hardware
- GPU-accelerated for real-time speed at scale, no peer cap
- Batch jobs and speaker labeling for the whole team
- Windows/NVIDIA or Apple Silicon · 14-day free trial
- 30-day money-back guarantee
The Host unlock is purchased in-app after its 7-day trial; the Server license is purchased on the web after a 14-day trial. Payments handled by Paddle.com as merchant of record · 30-day refund policy
Try it in the next two minutes.
LymeScribe for Mac & Windows
Free to use as a client. Hosting on your own computer starts a 7-day free trial — no account, no credit card.
Honest floors, stated up front.
Local transcription is real compute. Rather than ship a degraded mode for aging machines, we publish the floor and stand behind everything above it. Below minimum, the app may install and even run — but performance there is outside what we support.
Client free · connects to a server, which does the heavy lifting
Host it yourself your own computer doubles as the server
Below the Mac floor (Intel, M1), hosting runs in a CPU-only beta with the smaller models — it works, but the full large-model, real-time experience we stand behind starts at M2. On Windows, hosting runs on any modern CPU; an NVIDIA GPU is what makes the larger, more accurate models real-time.
Speaker-labeled transcripts diarization · part of hosting, runs as a batch job
On Windows, speaker labeling requires the NVIDIA GPU — we don't offer it on CPU, where it's too slow to stand behind. (The office Server product can queue batch jobs on CPU; see its note below.)
Server a dedicated machine for the whole office · Technology Preview
No NVIDIA GPU? The server falls back to CPU for batch jobs — it works, but expect several times real-time. We support real-time performance only on the GPU configurations above.
Fair questions, straight answers.
Host it yourself or Server — which do I need?
Host it yourself if you want your own Mac or PC to do the hosting for yourself and a few people on your network — no extra hardware, a one-time unlock in the app. Server (Technology Preview) if you're equipping a whole office and want an always-on, GPU-accelerated machine built to serve many people at once. Both run on hardware you own; the only question is how many people you're serving.
Is it really 100% offline?
Transcription is — audio, models, and transcripts never leave your machine, and dictation works with Wi-Fi off entirely. The only network calls the app ever makes are checking for updates, and (for paid hosting) a license activation with our licensing server. Neither involves your audio or transcripts.
How accurate is it?
LymeScribe runs OpenAI's Whisper family of models — the same open models many cloud dictation services build on. The accuracy is in the model, not the subscription: on clear audio the larger models are competitive with the best cloud tools. When you host, you pick the model size your hardware can carry — bigger model, better accuracy — and the corrections dictionary teaches it your names, jargon, and acronyms so repeat mistakes get fixed once, permanently.
What data do you collect?
We never see your audio or transcripts — that's the entire point of the product. There are no analytics and no telemetry. When you buy a license, we store what's needed to issue and support it: your name and email, your license key, and basic activation records (device name, app version, and a non-reversible device identifier). Payment details go to Paddle, our merchant of record, not to us. Details in the privacy policy.
What does it run on?
A recent Mac (Apple Silicon, macOS 14+) or a Windows 10/11 PC. Transcription runs on the CPU of any modern machine — a GPU (Metal on Mac, CUDA on Windows/NVIDIA) accelerates the larger models to real-time and is what speaker labeling (diarization) requires. Full minimums and recommendations are in system requirements.
What hardware do I need for meeting transcription?
Dropping in a recording asks more of the machine than live dictation, but a plain transcript runs anywhere — the difference is speed, not whether it works. On Mac, Apple Silicon M2 or later with 16 GB+ memory is recommended; earlier or 8 GB machines work, but expect much longer processing times. On Windows, speaker labels require an NVIDIA GPU (the app disables them on CPU-only machines); a transcript without speaker labels works on any 64-bit PC, though CPU-only processing is slow — a one-hour meeting can take several hours. Full detail in system requirements.
How does the trial work?
Using the app as a client is free forever, no trial involved. Hosting transcription on your own computer starts a 7-day trial with full features the first time you use it. When it ends, hosting locks until you buy a license — client mode keeps working, free. The office Server has its own 14-day trial that starts on your first transcription.
What if it's not for me?
Every purchase comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee — email webinquiry@iadev.net and we'll refund it, no interrogation. See the refund policy.
Is this a subscription in disguise?
No. The hosting unlock is a one-time purchase that keeps working — the app runs on your hardware, so there's no server bill for us to pass along. You buy the current major version and own it for good. Point updates are free. When a future major version ships, you can upgrade at a discounted price.
Who makes LymeScribe?
LymeScribe is built by LymeStack, a division of Interapp Development, Inc. — a small, independent US software company. No venture capital, no growth team, no data play: we sell software the old-fashioned way, where you buy it once and own it. Questions and support go straight to the people who build it: webinquiry@iadev.net.