Potok turns speech into text in 33 languages, including English and Russian.
Before choosing a voice input service, check where recognition happens: on a server or right on the device. If on a server, the country of the data center and compliance with the 152-FZ law for the data of Russians matter. Potok (potok.now) uses cloud recognition with servers in Russia, and for business, servers inside the company perimeter are available.
Dictation goes through a program that hears everything that is said: work correspondence, phone numbers, sometimes passwords, if the field for them is not protected. Where the voice recording and the recognized text go after that is not an idle question but a quite specific one: with some programs the audio flies off to a server, with others it never leaves the computer. The difference affects both privacy and whether you need the internet to work.
| 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) |
| Diktuy | Windows, macOS | 30 minutes of dictation per month, free forever | 239 ₽/mo (Profi (monthly equivalent when billed yearly)); 2870 ₽/yr (Profi (year, billed in full)); 479 ₽/mo (Max (monthly equivalent when billed yearly)) | rubles directly (not confirmed) | cloud (the data center country is not disclosed on the website) (not confirmed) |
| Talkpad | macOS, Windows, Android | 2500 words/week on desktop, 1500 words/week on mobile, free forever; plus a 14-day Pro trial | $6/mo (Pro (billed yearly, $72/yr)); $8/mo (Pro (monthly billing)) | unknown (not confirmed) | cloud (the legal entity is registered in Australia; the website is hosted on Cloudflare; the exact location of the ASR servers is not disclosed in the privacy policy) (not confirmed) |
| 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) |
| WhispeRu | Windows | 7-day free trial (no card) | 290 ₽/mo (monthly license); 1990 ₽/yr (yearly license); 4990 ₽/one-time (lifetime license) | rubles directly (payment via YooKassa) | device (offline) |
| 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) |
| 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.) |
What happens to the voice in cloud services
Cloud recognition is simple: the voice recording goes to the company's server, is turned into text there and comes back to the app. For privacy two things matter here: which country receives this data and what the service says about itself at all. Potok uses cloud recognition, with servers in Russia, and data handling complies with the 152-FZ law. For business there is a separate option with servers inside the company perimeter, single sign-on through SSO and a shared dictionary on request.
Not all cloud services name the country of their servers. SpeakFlow and Diktuy, according to their sites, recognize speech in the cloud but do not disclose which country the data center is in. Talkpad is in a similar situation: the legal entity itself is registered in Australia, and the exact location of the recognition servers is not stated in the privacy policy, according to the site. Lispr discloses this directly: recognition there is done by a third-party service, Groq in the USA, which means the voice and text pass through infrastructure outside Russia.
What recognition right on the device gives
Local recognition works on the opposite principle: the audio does not leave the computer at all, and all processing runs on its processor or graphics card. There is no need to find out which country the server is in, because there is simply no recognition server, and so no extra link to which you have to trust your voice recording. The other side is the load on the computer itself: recognition quality and speed depend on its power.
Voisty recognizes on the device offline, with local models such as Whisper Large V3 Turbo and NVIDIA Parakeet. WhispeRu also works offline, on Windows only. GigaType is built on the GigaAM neural network from Sber, trained for Russian, and also recognizes right on the device. Molvi has a similar scheme: the best quality comes on an NVIDIA graphics card, and without it the program switches to a faster model for the processor. None of the four programs sends audio to a third-party server.
How to decide in five minutes
Check a few items in a row, without going deep into legal texts (the full list of programs to compare is in the selection of voice input programs):
- open the service's privacy page or FAQ and find a direct answer to where recognition happens, on a server or on the device;
- if the service is cloud-based, look for the name of the country of the servers; if it is not on the site, that is also information, and you will have to either trust the service or take a local option;
- for work correspondence, find out whether there is a separate plan with servers inside the company or SSO, which for Potok is the business option on request;
- do not dictate passwords and other protected data aloud: this applies to any voice input program, not just one particular service.
Frequently asked questions
On the regular plan, no: Potok recognizes speech only in the cloud, and there is no local mode. For companies that forbid the cloud there is a separate business option with servers inside the company perimeter, SSO and a shared dictionary, with terms set on request.
There is no direct way to check this from the site alone: look at whether the country of the recognition servers is named and whether there is a privacy policy in Russian. Potok's servers are in Russia, which meets the requirement to store the personal data of Russians in the country.
Voice input and personal data processing. 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 Voice input and personal data processing you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Voice input and personal data processing. 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 Voice input and personal data processing you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Voice input and personal data processing. 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 Voice input and personal data processing you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Voice input and personal data processing. 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 Voice input and personal data processing you dictate into the same field where you normally type, so there is no need to switch between apps.
Who Potok will not suit
Potok is a cloud service, speech recognition happens on servers in Russia, and it does not work without an internet connection: it has no local mode in which audio stays on the computer. If a company forbids sending voice and text to external cloud services altogether, the regular plan will not fit. You need a separate business option with servers inside the company perimeter, and its terms are set on request, not arranged as an ordinary subscription. For those to whom it is essential that a voice recording physically never leaves the device, it is worth looking straight at local recognition programs rather than cloud ones.
Download Potok
Works with a single key in any program. 14 days of full access, then Free with 2500 words per week or Pro at 690 ₽/mo (499 ₽/mo paid yearly). Potok is a cloud service, so it does not work without the internet.
Download PotokYou dictate in the app, and recordings and voice messages are transcribed by @potok_now_bot in Telegram. 60 minutes per month are free; the Potok subscription removes the limit in the bot and in the app.
Related software: terms compared
| 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) |
| Diktuy | Windows, macOS | 30 minutes of dictation per month, free forever | 239 ₽/mo (Profi (monthly equivalent when billed yearly)); 2870 ₽/yr (Profi (year, billed in full)); 479 ₽/mo (Max (monthly equivalent when billed yearly)) | rubles directly (not confirmed) | cloud (the data center country is not disclosed on the website) (not confirmed) |
| Talkpad | macOS, Windows, Android | 2500 words/week on desktop, 1500 words/week on mobile, free forever; plus a 14-day Pro trial | $6/mo (Pro (billed yearly, $72/yr)); $8/mo (Pro (monthly billing)) | unknown (not confirmed) | cloud (the legal entity is registered in Australia; the website is hosted on Cloudflare; the exact location of the ASR servers is not disclosed in the privacy policy) (not confirmed) |
| 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) |
| WhispeRu | Windows | 7-day free trial (no card) | 290 ₽/mo (monthly license); 1990 ₽/yr (yearly license); 4990 ₽/one-time (lifetime license) | rubles directly (payment via YooKassa) | device (offline) |
| 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) |
Primary sources: speakflow.ru · speakflow.ru · speakflow.ru · blog.speakflow.ru