Potok turns speech into text in 33 languages, including English and Russian.
Voisty recognizes speech on the device with local models such as Whisper and Parakeet, without sending audio to a server. Russian is on its list of 90+ supported languages, but there is no public data on recognition quality for Russian, and the service does not say whether Russian cards are accepted. Potok (potok.now) works differently: a cloud model trained specifically for Russian speech, payment by a Russian bank card and 2500 words per week for free.
Voisty is sold as an offline transcriber with local models and a subscription in dollars, and for many people in Russia the questions start right there. The service does not explicitly list a Russian bank card among accepted payment methods, and of its 90+ claimed languages nothing is publicly known about the quality of Russian. Buying a subscription only to find that recognition mixes up terms and names is a common scenario with little-known multilingual models. Some people look for a replacement because of this; others simply because Voisty was not built in the first place for on-the-fly dictation, as opposed to transcribing finished recordings. Other options for dictation in Russian are collected in the section of alternatives to voice input.
Why people look for a Voisty replacement
The main reason is unverified Russian. Russian is formally on the list of 90+ supported languages, but the developer publishes no data on how Voisty handles Russian speech, terms and names. With general-purpose multilingual models, quality on less popular languages is often noticeably lower than on English, and the only way to find out whether that is the case here is to test your own text.
The second reason is payment. Voisty accepts Visa, Mastercard, Amex and PayPal cards, but nowhere says explicitly whether cards from Russian banks go through. For a user in Russia this is a risk of signing up for a subscription and getting a declined payment at the payment step, instead of knowing it in advance.
The third is transparency. The legal entity behind Voisty is not named in open sources. For a service that is trusted with voice recordings, the lack of a clear legal entity is a reason to be more cautious than with an ordinary text app.
Finally, check the use case itself. The Voisty free plan is described as “5 minutes of transcription to evaluate quality”, a wording closer to a one-off transcription of a finished recording than to constant dictation into work fields all day. If the second scenario is what you need, first make sure that Voisty is about it at all, and not about a neighboring task.
| Service | Platforms | Free | Price | Payment from Russia | Where speech is recognized |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Potok | Windows, macOS, Linux | Free: 2500 words per week; full access for the first 14 days, no card needed | Pro 690 ₽/mo, 499 ₽/mo when paid yearly | Russian bank cards, rubles | cloud, servers in Russia; internet required |
| Voisty | Windows, macOS | 5 minutes of transcription (to judge the quality) | $6.7/mo (Pro); $67/yr (Pro (year)); $99/one-time (Lifetime) | Visa/Mastercard/Amex cards, PayPal; whether Russian cards are accepted is not stated (not confirmed) | device (offline, local models such as Whisper Large V3 Turbo / NVIDIA Parakeet) |
| GigaType | Windows, macOS | free with no limits: open source under the MIT license (Copyright (c) 2026 Disrupt Builders), all features are available without payment | — | not needed: there are no paid plans | device (offline, Sber's GigaAM neural network) |
| SuperWhisper | macOS, Windows, iOS | free: small local models with no usage limits (offline) | $8.49/mo (Pro, monthly); $84.99/yr (Pro, annual (≈$7.08/mo)); $249.99/one-time (Lifetime, one-time, covers Mac+Windows+iOS) | not disclosed | hybrid: small local models offline (free), large cloud models (Scribe, Nova, Gemini, GPT and others) through the Superwhisper proxy on Pro/BYOK — providers see the request from the proxy, not the user's account |
| Lispr | Windows, macOS | 60 minutes of dictation per week for free; the key features (push-to-talk, translation, dictionary, local history) always stay free, without an account | $7.99/mo (Pro, monthly); $79/yr (Pro, yearly (from $44.90 with regional discounts)) | unknown (not confirmed) | cloud (USA; recognition is done by Groq, Inc.) |
| MacWhisper | macOS | A free version is available ("Free forever", limited functionality), Pro is paid | €64/one-time (Pro, one-time purchase through Gumroad, lifetime updates); $29.99/yr (Pro, App Store version ("Whisper Transcription"), subscription); $99.99/one-time (Pro, App Store version, one-time purchase) | not disclosed | on the device (offline) by default, with local Whisper models; there are optional cloud transcription providers, but not as the main mode |
| SpeechPad (voice notepad) | Web (Chrome), Chrome extension, Android, iOS, integration modules for Windows/Mac/Linux | basic voice input in the notepad is free; transcription of audio/video up to 15 minutes is free | 100 ₽/mo (extended mode (integration of voice input with Windows/Linux OS, removal of the 15-minute transcription limit): the amount appears in user comments/reviews, and no exact official price list was found on the site) | yes: Robokassa and bank cards are accepted (for payment from abroad, an alternative site voicenotebook.com with PayPal is mentioned) | not disclosed |
| A-Golos | macOS, Windows, Android | 20 minutes of audio per month free, no card attached | 490 ₽/mo (Lite, 120 min/mo); 4900 ₽/yr (Lite, yearly); 950 ₽/mo (Pro, 300 min/mo) | rubles directly (through an external payment provider, card data is not stored by the service) | cloud: the policy states that personal data is stored on servers in Russia, but the speech recognition itself is performed by OpenAI (USA); results and audio are not stored on the company's servers |
| Google voice input (Google Docs voice typing + Gboard) | Web (Google Docs, Chrome/Edge/Safari, current versions), Android (Gboard), iOS (Gboard) | free, built into Google Docs and the Gboard keyboard | — | not disclosed | cloud: in Google Docs, speech recognition is handled by the browser, which manages the speech-to-text service and determines speech processing, after which the text is sent to Google Docs (that is, a cloud service of the browser or Google is used, not local processing). In Gboard some advanced voice typing features for certain locales run on the device and are not sent to Google servers by default, but ordinary Gboard voice input is generally cloud-based |
| Voco (TsRT) and Laitis: legacy voice input programs for Windows | Windows | Voco: unknown, was a paid product with Basic/Professional/Enterprise versions, there was no free version. Laitis: there is a free version ("free, no ads"), plus a separate paid version which, according to the developers, is distinguished by stable operation | — | not disclosed | Voco: judging by the user manual (2022), Voco's speech recognition historically worked locally on the PC (offline, no internet), which set it apart from modern cloud services, but this is not confirmed on the current site, since the product is not found in the current catalog. Laitis: the laitis.ru site states that speech recognition requires an internet connection, that is, cloud processing |
| Spokenly | macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS | local models (Whisper/Parakeet) are free forever with no word limit; connecting your own API keys (BYOK) is also free | $9.99/mo (Pro, monthly); $99.99/yr (Pro, yearly (≈$8.33/mo)) | not disclosed | hybrid: locally on the device (Whisper/Parakeet, free) or in the cloud (GPT-4o Transcribe, Deepgram Nova 3, Soniox and others, via BYOK or Pro) |
What to check in a replacement
Before paying for a new subscription, it makes sense to settle a few questions in advance.
- Test Russian recognition on your own text with real terms and names, not on a generic phrase from an advertisement, especially if the language is claimed “on a list” and not as a core one.
- Find out the payment method from Russia in advance, not at the moment of the charge: whether a Russian bank card works directly or an intermediary is needed.
- Look for open information about the service's legal entity: how clearly it states who processes your voice recordings and on what basis.
- Define your use case: dictation on the fly straight into a work field or transcription of ready audio and video recordings. These are different tasks, and not every program is equally good at both.
- Compare offline and cloud options for your task: a local model does not send audio to a server, but it needs computer resources and is not always updated as quickly as a cloud one.
- Check whether there is a personal dictionary for the terms and names that a general multilingual model usually mixes up most often.
- Compare the payment model (monthly, yearly or a one-time license) and work out which is cheaper at your dictation volume, not by the price on the home page.
- Check the platforms: whether you need a version for Windows, macOS or both at once, if you work on different computers.
| Service | Platforms | Free | Price | Payment from Russia | Where speech is recognized |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Potok | Windows, macOS, Linux | Free: 2500 words per week; full access for the first 14 days, no card needed | Pro 690 ₽/mo, 499 ₽/mo when paid yearly | Russian bank cards, rubles | cloud, servers in Russia; internet required |
| Voisty | Windows, macOS | 5 minutes of transcription (to judge the quality) | $6.7/mo (Pro); $67/yr (Pro (year)); $99/one-time (Lifetime) | Visa/Mastercard/Amex cards, PayPal; whether Russian cards are accepted is not stated (not confirmed) | device (offline, local models such as Whisper Large V3 Turbo / NVIDIA Parakeet) |
| GigaType | Windows, macOS | free with no limits: open source under the MIT license (Copyright (c) 2026 Disrupt Builders), all features are available without payment | — | not needed: there are no paid plans | device (offline, Sber's GigaAM neural network) |
Who Potok will not suit instead of Voisty
Potok will not replace Voisty in its main task, transcribing ready audio and video recordings: Potok recognizes only what you say right now, during dictation, and does not work with files at all. Nor will it suit those for whom offline is essential: Potok is a cloud service, recognition runs on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet, unlike Voisty's local models. A program with fully offline recognition in Russian is covered in the comparison of GigaType and Potok.
Multilingual support is not general either: Potok is tuned for Russian speech and mixed Russian-English text, not for the whole list of 90-odd languages at once. If you need to speak a third or fourth language in the same program, that is not what Potok is for.
Frequently asked questions
Formally yes: Russian is on the list of 90+ supported languages, but the developer does not publish any data on recognition quality for Russian specifically. It is worth testing on your own text rather than relying on the general list.
This is not stated anywhere: the service accepts Visa, Mastercard, Amex and PayPal, but whether a card from a Russian bank works is not specified. Check this before paying.
Voisty alternatives. Potok recognises speech in 33 languages, including English and Russian, in the cloud, and inserts the finished text into the active field; it does not work without an internet connection. Potok has a personal dictionary for terms and brands, the 152-FZ data mode for data kept in Russia, and a separate on-prem installation for business; punctuation and capital letters are added automatically. Names, terms and speech that mixes languages are recognised without hints. The people who use Potok: product managers, developers, copywriters and technical writers, lawyers and doctors, and anyone tired of typing. For Voisty alternatives you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Voisty alternatives. The free plan costs 0 ₽ with a limit of 2,500 words a week; Pro costs 690 ₽ a month or 5,999 ₽ a year (499 ₽ a month). Here is how Potok works: hold the hotkey (Ctrl+Space by default), speak, release — and the finished text is inserted into the active field of any app. Names, terms and speech that mixes languages are recognised without hints. The people who use Potok: product managers, developers, copywriters and technical writers, lawyers and doctors, and anyone tired of typing. For Voisty alternatives you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Voisty alternatives. Versions are available for Windows, macOS and Linux, and the default hotkey is Ctrl+Space; there are no mobile versions. Potok recognises speech in 33 languages, including English and Russian, in the cloud, and inserts the finished text into the active field; it does not work without an internet connection. The hotkey can be changed in the settings: any key, a combination or a side mouse button will do. Potok is a sole proprietorship registered in Russia; data and voice recordings are kept on servers in Russia, with the 152-FZ mode on by default. For Voisty alternatives you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Voisty alternatives. Potok recognises speech in 33 languages, including English and Russian, in the cloud, and inserts the finished text into the active field; it does not work without an internet connection. Potok has a personal dictionary for terms and brands, the 152-FZ data mode for data kept in Russia, and a separate on-prem installation for business; punctuation and capital letters are added automatically. Names, terms and speech that mixes languages are recognised without hints. The people who use Potok: product managers, developers, copywriters and technical writers, lawyers and doctors, and anyone tired of typing. For Voisty alternatives you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Check it in one evening
Install Potok, dictate what you usually type and compare. 14 days of full access, no card needed. Potok is a cloud service, so it does not work without the internet.
Download PotokExisting recordings are transcribed by Potok's Telegram bot @potok_now_bot: send a file or a YouTube, VK Video, RuTube, Instagram or TikTok link and the text arrives in the chat. The Potok subscription removes the limit in the bot too.
Primary sources: voisty.com · voisty.com