Letterly vs Hedy: Voice-to-Text App vs Meeting Assistant
Letterly turns voice into polished text. Hedy turns meetings into actionable intelligence. We compare both to help you choose.
Letterly and Hedy both start with the same input: your voice. But what they do with it couldn’t be more different. Letterly is a voice-to-text app designed to turn spoken thoughts into polished written content. Hedy is a meeting assistant designed to turn conversations into structured, actionable intelligence. Choosing between them depends entirely on what you need from your recordings.
We tested both for several weeks across different workflows. Here’s how they compare.
What Each Tool Actually Does
Letterly captures your voice and transforms it into formatted written content. Speak a rambling thought, and Letterly returns a clean email, a structured note, an X post, or a to-do list. It offers 25+ rewrite formats and lets you create custom templates. The value proposition is simple: talk instead of type, and get polished output.
Hedy captures meeting audio and transforms it into structured meeting intelligence. It identifies speakers, extracts action items, summarizes decisions, provides real-time coaching during conversations, and connects insights across all your meetings over time. The value proposition is deeper: make every meeting more productive and every follow-up more reliable.
Transcription Quality
Letterly supports 90+ languages with automatic language detection. Transcription quality is solid for general dictation, and the multilingual support is among the best in any voice app. The focus is on getting your words into text quickly and accurately.
Hedy runs Whisper models on-device, providing high-accuracy transcription with speaker diarization. On Apple Silicon Macs, accuracy reaches 90-93%. The key difference is that Hedy identifies who said what, which is essential for meetings but unnecessary for solo dictation.
Verdict: Letterly wins on language breadth. Hedy wins on meeting-specific accuracy with speaker attribution.
AI Features
This is where the tools diverge most.
Letterly’s AI is focused on rewriting. It takes your transcript and reformats it into a chosen style: formal email, casual message, structured notes, social media post, bullet points, or custom formats. This is genuinely useful for people who think out loud and want clean written output. But the AI doesn’t understand context beyond the current recording. It doesn’t know who you were talking to, what was decided, or what needs to happen next.
Hedy’s AI is focused on meeting intelligence. It generates structured summaries with topic breakdowns, extracts action items attributed to specific participants, identifies decisions made during the conversation, provides real-time coaching cues, and builds a searchable knowledge base across all your meetings. Over time, Hedy connects insights across conversations, surfacing patterns and context that would otherwise be lost.
Verdict: Different tools for different jobs. Letterly’s rewriting is better for content creation. Hedy’s analysis is better for meeting productivity.
Privacy and Data Handling
Letterly supports offline recording but processes transcripts through cloud servers for AI rewriting. Your spoken content is transmitted externally for the transformation step. Privacy policy details are available but not prominently featured.
Hedy processes audio entirely on-device. Whisper models run locally, so your meeting recordings and transcripts never leave your computer. Cloud sync is optional and user-controlled. There is no third-party data processing.
Verdict: Hedy wins clearly. On-device processing eliminates the privacy trade-offs that cloud-based AI requires.
Platform Support
Letterly runs on iOS, Android, Mac, and web. No Windows support.
Hedy runs on iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and web. Full cross-platform coverage.
Verdict: Hedy covers more platforms, including Windows.
Offline Capability
Letterly records offline but requires internet for AI rewriting. You can capture audio anywhere, but the polished output only arrives when you’re back online.
Hedy records and transcribes offline. The on-device Whisper models produce full transcripts without any internet connection. AI analysis features are also available offline through local processing.
Verdict: Hedy offers more complete offline functionality.
Integrations
Letterly integrates with Zapier, which connects it to tools like Google Docs and Notion. Custom webhooks provide additional automation options. For a voice-to-text app, this covers the basics.
Hedy integrates with calendar apps, task managers, and note-taking tools. Meeting context flows into your existing productivity stack with structured data rather than plain text.
Verdict: Both offer reasonable integrations. Hedy’s meeting-aware integrations are more structured; Letterly’s Zapier connection is more flexible.
Pricing
Letterly offers a free trial, with paid plans at $9/month or $70/year. Lifetime deals have been available through AppSumo.
Hedy uses a subscription model with competitive pricing that reflects the cost savings of on-device processing.
Verdict: Hard to compare directly without Letterly’s public pricing. Both offer free entry points.
Who Should Choose What
Choose Letterly if:
- You primarily need voice-to-text for emails, notes, and content creation
- You dictate more than you attend meetings
- You need 90+ language support
- You want quick, formatted output from spoken input
- You don’t handle sensitive or confidential conversations
Choose Hedy if:
- You attend meetings regularly and need structured summaries
- You want action items, decisions, and follow-ups extracted automatically
- Privacy matters and you want audio to stay on your device
- You need speaker identification and attribution
- You want cross-meeting insights that connect conversations over time
- You work in a regulated industry or handle sensitive discussions
Quick Comparison
| Feature | Letterly | Hedy |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Use | Voice-to-text content creation | Meeting intelligence |
| Language Support | 90+ languages | Multiple languages via Whisper |
| Speaker Identification | No | Yes |
| AI Rewriting/Formatting | 25+ formats | Structured meeting summaries |
| Action Item Extraction | No | Yes, speaker-attributed |
| Real-Time Coaching | No | Yes |
| Cross-Meeting Insights | No | Yes |
| Offline Recording | Yes | Yes |
| Offline Transcription | No | Yes (on-device Whisper) |
| Processing | Cloud | On-device |
| Platform Support | iOS, Android, Mac, Web | iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Web |
| Integrations | Zapier (Google Docs, Notion via Zapier) | Calendar, tasks, notes |
| Free Trial | Yes | Yes |
The Bottom Line
Letterly and Hedy aren’t really competitors. They solve different problems with different approaches. Letterly is a dictation tool for the AI age: speak freely, get polished text. Hedy is a meeting intelligence platform: attend meetings, get structured insights.
If your primary need is turning voice into written content, emails, social posts, notes, and to-do lists, Letterly does that well and simply. If your primary need is making meetings more productive and actionable, with privacy-preserving on-device processing, Hedy is purpose-built for exactly that.
For many professionals, the answer might be both: Letterly for quick dictation throughout the day, and Hedy for every meeting. But if you have to choose one, the question is simple: are you mostly dictating, or mostly meeting?
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