Potok turns speech into text in 33 languages, including English and Russian.
After a year and a half of daily dictation, the keyboard is almost not needed for long texts: by voice you get about 900 characters per minute, noticeably faster than typing, and there is less strain on the hands. This is the main reason for switching to voice input, and Potok (potok.now) inserts dictated text into any field with one press of a hotkey.
Typing all working day is hard on the hands and slow compared with how fast a person speaks. Over time it turns into tired wrists, losing the thought while typing a long phrase, and a feeling that the keyboard is the narrowest point in working with text. Switching to dictation solves exactly this problem: text is born at the speed of speech, and the hands are needed only for editing.
One working day with dictation
The morning usually begins with correspondence: emails, messages in work chats, short replies. Hold the hotkey, say the phrase, release the key, and the text is already in the input field. Repeating this for every message is faster than typing word by word.
Then come longer pieces: a draft of a document, a meeting plan, a comment on a task. Here the difference from typing is especially noticeable: Potok states about 900 characters per minute by voice against about 200 when typing, and on a text of a couple of paragraphs this difference saves real minutes. A response time of about 0.4 seconds means that the text appears almost right after the key is released, so you do not have to wait and lose your thought.
Professional terms and names that ordinary dictation tends to distort can be put into a personal dictionary, and then the program stops confusing them with words that sound similar. This is especially noticeable in meetings where the talk is about specific names, products or abbreviations that are not in ordinary speech. More about how models handle Russian and terms is in the article about voice input for Russian speech (in Russian).
By the end of the day, when writing by hand is already physically hard, dictation removes this fatigue: the voice does not get tired the way the hands do after several hours of typing.
What changed after the switch
The main change is less physical fatigue from writing and more free time to formulate a thought instead of fighting typing speed. But a new habit also appeared: dictated text almost always needs a quick edit, moving a word or fixing punctuation, because there are no ready voice commands for editing: what is already written is edited with the keyboard or mouse, as before.
The way of formulating thoughts itself has also changed: when dictating it is easier to speak in whole phrases than to type word by word and keep going back to correct on the go. On the plus side there are fewer distractions like autocorrect in the middle of a word; on the minus side, in a noisy place or with other people nearby it is awkward to dictate, and at such moments the keyboard turns out to be needed again.
| Task | Characters | Typing (200 chars/min) | Voice (900 chars/min) |
|---|---|---|---|
| chat reply | 300 | 2 min | 0.5 min |
| 1500 | 8 min | 1.7 min | |
| post or meeting minutes | 4000 | 20 min | 4.4 min |
| article | 10000 | 50 min | 11.1 min |
| 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 |
| SpeakFlow | Windows, Web | 30 minutes of dictation per month, free forever | 690 ₽/mo (Personal (unlimited)) | rubles directly | cloud (the data center country is not disclosed on the website) (not confirmed) |
| 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) |
| Molvi | Windows, macOS | free forever, no accounts and no payment | — | not needed: the product is free; voluntary donations are accepted via Telegram Tribute or by card on the website, amounts are not fixed | device (offline; best quality on an NVIDIA GPU, otherwise a fast model on the CPU) |
Who does not need such a switch
For those who write little and briefly, a couple of messages a day, the switch will not pay off: the difference in speed is noticeable only on long texts. For those whose work is code, spreadsheets or other non-text input, dictation will not help much either. Potok is a cloud service, recognition happens on servers in Russia, and it does not work without the internet, so those who write where there is no connection need either an offline tool or the usual keyboard.
Where to start
- Choose a program for your conditions: Potok and SpeakFlow give a free plan with a limit (for SpeakFlow it is 30 minutes of dictation per month), Molvi is completely free, and GigaType recognizes offline on a model trained for Russian. The difference of approaches is covered in the comparison with GigaType.
- Dictate for one day instead of typing, and compare how much text came out in the same time.
- Put into the personal dictionary the terms and names that recognition usually confuses.
- Get used to speaking in whole phrases rather than short scraps, so there is less to fix afterwards.
- Keep the keyboard for code, spreadsheets and places where dictating is awkward; a complete refusal of it is not necessary.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Programs like Potok insert text into the active field of any app: messengers, mail and the browser all work. The exception is protected fields like a password input and full-screen games, where insertion does not go through.
Why I stopped typing by hand. 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 Why I stopped typing by hand you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Why I stopped typing by hand. 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 Why I stopped typing by hand you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Why I stopped typing by hand. 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 Why I stopped typing by hand you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Why I stopped typing by hand. 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 Why I stopped typing by hand you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Try it on your own texts
Download Potok for Windows, macOS or Linux: full access for the first 14 days, no card needed. After that, 2500 words per week for free or Pro for 690 ₽ per month. Potok is a cloud service, so it does not work without the internet.
Download PotokThe Potok subscription also includes the Telegram bot @potok_now_bot: forward it a voice message or a long meeting recording and it returns the text. Without a subscription the bot gives 60 minutes per month for free.
Primary sources: speakflow.ru · speakflow.ru · speakflow.ru · blog.speakflow.ru