Arion

Free open-source on-device voice input for macOS and Windows that works offline.

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Arion is a free, AGPL-3.0 open-source voice input app from AstraFoundry for Apple silicon Macs (macOS 14 or later) and Windows x64 (early preview). Press the dictation shortcut in any app, speak Chinese, English or both in one sentence, and it types at the cursor. Speech recognition runs on-device with an automatically chosen local model; after the one-time download, dictation needs no network and no audio or text is sent away. Corrections you make are learned on the device. Optional polishing with a small local language model (Apple silicon only, off by default) can tidy wording and apply spoken self-corrections. On macOS it also offers an offline Pinyin input method. No account is required for dictation.

Pros

  • Free and open source (AGPL-3.0); dictation works without an account
  • Fully offline after the one-time model download; audio and text stay on the device
  • Chinese and English mixable mid-sentence; learns from on-device corrections with undo
  • Optional local LLM polishing on Apple silicon; macOS also includes offline Pinyin input

Cons

  • macOS requires Apple silicon and macOS 14+; Windows is an early preview
  • Official recognition languages are Chinese and English only
  • Optional polishing is Apple silicon only and off by default
Platforms
  • macOS
  • Windows
Speech processing
On-device
Works offline
Yes
Languages
2+

Pricing

Pricing model
Open source
Free tier
Yes

Features

  • Yes Works in any app
  • Yes Real-time transcription
  • No Auto punctuation
  • Yes AI cleanup
  • Yes Custom vocabulary
  • No Voice commands
  • Yes Push to talk
  • Yes Auto language detection
  • No Translation
  • No File transcription
  • No Meeting notes
  • Yes Multilingual interface
  • Yes History

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Last verified 2026-10-25