Voxtype vs hyprwhspr | Hyprland Speech-to-Text Comparison
Description: Compare Voxtype and hyprwhspr for Hyprland speech-to-text. Both use Whisper, but different approaches to Wayland integration.

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# Voxtype vs hyprwhspr

Two Whisper-based tools for Hyprland users. Both offer Waybar integration and push-to-talk. Which fits your setup?

## At a Glance

Aspect | Voxtype | hyprwhspr
--- | --- | ---
Engine | Whisper (whisper.cpp) | Whisper (pywhispercpp)
Language | Rust | Python
Target Distro | Any Linux | Arch/Omarchy
Compositors | Any Wayland | Hyprland-focused
GPU Acceleration | Vulkan, CUDA, Metal, ROCm | CUDA, ROCm (6.x only)
Waybar Integration | Yes | Yes
Systemd Service | Yes | Yes
Audio Feedback | Yes (customizable themes) | Yes
Desktop Notifications | Yes (notify-send) | No (audio only)
Word Replacements | Yes | Yes (via WhisperTux)
Spoken Punctuation | Yes (opt-in) | Yes
Interactive Setup | Yes (`voxtype setup model`) | Yes (`hyprwhspr setup`)
Cloud Fallback | No (offline only) | Yes (OpenAI, Groq APIs)

## What They Share

Both tools have excellent feature parity:

- Whisper-powered - Both use OpenAI's Whisper for high-accuracy transcription
- Waybar integration - Status indicators for tiling WM users
- Systemd user service - Starts at login, always ready
- Audio feedback - Know when recording starts/stops
- Push-to-talk - Hold hotkey to record
- ydotool integration - Text appears at cursor
- Word replacements - Custom text substitutions for misheard words
- Spoken punctuation - Say "period" to get ".", "open paren" for "(", etc.
- Interactive setup - Guided model selection and download

## Critical Differences

### Distro & Compositor Support

Voxtype works on any Linux distribution and any Wayland compositor. It uses evdev for hotkey detection, which is compositor-agnostic.

hyprwhspr is designed specifically for Arch Linux and Omarchy. While it may work on other distros, it's optimized for the Hyprland ecosystem and may require extra setup elsewhere.

### Architecture

Voxtype is a single Rust binary with no runtime dependencies beyond system libraries. Install once, run forever.

hyprwhspr is a Python application that relies on pywhispercpp and other Python dependencies. It offers more flexibility (cloud API fallbacks, word overrides) but has a larger dependency footprint.

### GPU Acceleration

Voxtype supports Vulkan (works on AMD, NVIDIA, Intel), CUDA, Metal, and ROCm via compile-time features.

hyprwhspr supports CUDA and ROCm, but notes that ROCm 7.x has compatibility issues and falls back to CPU. If you're on AMD with recent ROCm, verify compatibility.

## Feature Comparison

### What hyprwhspr Does Better

- Cloud API fallback - Can use OpenAI or Groq APIs when local transcription is too slow
- Parakeet support - Alternative to Whisper using NVIDIA's Parakeet-v3 model (requires NeMo)

### What Voxtype Does Better

- Any compositor - Works on GNOME, KDE, Sway, Hyprland, River, and more
- Any distro - Packages for Arch, Debian, Fedora, or build from source
- Single binary - No Python environment to manage
- Desktop notifications - Visual feedback via notify-send, not just audio
- Privacy-first - No cloud options means your voice never leaves your machine
- Broader GPU support - Vulkan works across GPU vendors (including ROCm 7.x)
- large-v3-turbo model - Fast multilingual model (1.6 GB) with excellent accuracy

## Setup Comparison

### Voxtype on Arch

    paru -S voxtype
    voxtype setup model     # Interactive model selection
    voxtype setup systemd   # Install systemd service
    voxtype setup waybar    # Get Waybar config (optional)

### hyprwhspr on Arch

    yay -S hyprwhspr
    hyprwhspr setup
    # Follow interactive prompts

### The Verdict

Choose Voxtype if you want a single binary that works on any Wayland compositor and any Linux distro, prefer privacy-first (no cloud options), or want broader GPU support via Vulkan.

Choose hyprwhspr if you're on Arch/Omarchy with Hyprland and want cloud API fallbacks when local transcription is too slow, or if you want to use NVIDIA's Parakeet model.

Both tools now offer excellent feature parity: word replacements, spoken punctuation, interactive setup, Waybar integration, and audio feedback. The main differences are architecture (Rust vs Python) and cloud capabilities.

## Links

- Voxtype
- hyprwhspr on GitHub