Hex is my new favorite STT on MacOS. Also uses Parakeet V3. I didn't think it could possibly be faster than Handy, but it is much faster - even long ramblings transcribed within a second. It's MacOS only, leverages the CoreML / Apple Neural Engine.

https://github.com/kitlangton/Hex

Also the transcriptions with hex don't seem to suffer from some of the issues with Handy, such as stutter.

For local speech-to-text, Whisper remains the gold standard - you can run it locally with good accuracy across languages. For speech-to-speech, you'd typically chain Whisper with a local TTS model like Coqui TTS or use something like Tortoise TTS for higher quality but slower processing. The key is balancing accuracy, speed, and resource usage based on your specific use case. If you're doing content creation workflows, consider what post-processing you might need - sometimes the raw transcription needs structure and enhancement beyond just accurate words.

Yes especially with Parakeet V3. It’s also nicely hackable, I Clauded a couple PRs to improve the experience, like removing stutters and filler words.