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With eight model families available, picking the right one for your setup comes down to a few straightforward questions: what hardware you have, which language you speak, how fast you need transcription to feel, and how much disk space you can spare. Work through the decision factors below, check the quick-pick table, and you’ll have a model downloaded in minutes.
You can try as many models as you like and switch between them at any time — open Voice Engine, and select a model whenever you want to experiment with a different option.

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Decision factors

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1. Hardware

Your Mac’s chip is the first filter.
  • Apple Silicon (M1 or later): All models are available to you — Nemotron Speech 3.5, Parakeet Flash, Parakeet TDT v3 and v2, Cohere Transcribe, Apple Speech, and the full Whisper family.
  • Intel Mac: Apple Speech and the Whisper family are supported. Start with Whisper Small for a good balance of speed and accuracy, or use Apple Speech for zero-download convenience.

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2. Language

  • English only: Any model works. For the lowest latency, choose Parakeet Flash (Beta) or Parakeet TDT v2. For accuracy, choose Cohere Transcribe.
  • European language (non-English): Parakeet TDT v3 covers 25 European languages with a good speed-accuracy balance. Nemotron Speech 3.5 covers ~40 languages and adds streaming capability.
  • East Asian, Arabic, or other languages: Cohere Transcribe covers Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Arabic. Whisper (Medium or Large) covers up to 99 languages and is the most comprehensive option.
  • Widest possible coverage: Whisper Large covers 99 languages at the highest accuracy of the Whisper family.

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3. Latency

  • Lowest latency: Parakeet Flash (Beta) — text appears on screen with near-zero delay. Nemotron Speech 3.5 Ultra Fast Low Latency delivers a similar real-time feel across ~40 languages.
  • Highest accuracy: Cohere Transcribe or Nemotron 3.5 Multilingual — both trade a little speed for cleaner transcripts.
  • Balanced: Parakeet TDT v3 is FluidVoice’s recommended default and a strong all-rounder.

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4. Disk space

  • Tight on space: Apple Speech is built into macOS and uses no extra disk space at all. Parakeet Flash is the smallest download at ~250 MB.
  • Moderate space available: Parakeet TDT v3 (~500 MB) and Nemotron 3.5 Multilingual (~530 MB) offer strong results for their size.
  • Space is not a concern: Cohere Transcribe (~1.4 GB) and Whisper Large (~2.9 GB) give you the highest accuracy the lineup offers.

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5. Offline use

Every local model in FluidVoice runs entirely on-device — no internet connection is needed once the model is downloaded. Apple Speech also works offline after your macOS system language has been set up. None of your audio or transcribed text is sent to the cloud during dictation.

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Quick-pick table

Use this table to jump straight to a recommendation based on your primary need.

New to FluidVoice, Apple Silicon

Start with Parakeet TDT v3. It covers 25 languages, downloads in under a minute, and gives you a fast, accurate baseline to compare against.

English-only power user

Choose Parakeet Flash (Beta). It is the fastest model available and delivers near-zero perceived latency for English dictation.

Multilingual or non-European language

Try Nemotron Speech 3.5 Multilingual for ~40 languages with high accuracy, or Cohere Transcribe if you need Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, or Arabic.

Intel Mac

Use Apple Speech for a zero-download start, or download Whisper Small (~466 MB) for broader language support and strong accuracy.

Tight on disk space

Apple Speech is built-in and free. If you want a dedicated model, Parakeet Flash at ~250 MB is the smallest standalone download.

Best accuracy, cost no object

Download Cohere Transcribe (~1.4 GB) for the highest-accuracy multilingual transcription in the lineup.

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How to switch models

1

Open Voice Engine

Select Voice Engine in the sidebar.
2

View models

View the full list of available models with their download sizes and language details.
3

Select and download

Choose the model you want. If it is not already on your Mac, click Download and wait for it to finish — FluidVoice switches to the new model automatically once the download completes.