Why I switched from Dragon NaturallySpeaking to Whisper API (and built my own app)

I used Dragon NaturallySpeaking for years. It was the gold standard — everyone said so. Then I spent a weekend with Whisper and realized the gap had closed in a way Nuance wasn't advertising.

This post is for people evaluating modern speech-to-text options for real work. I'll go technical where it matters.

What Dragon gets right

Let's be fair. Dragon's strengths are real:

On-device processing : No audio leaves your machine. For legal, medical, or confidential work, this matters enormously.

Commands and macros : "Click File", "Select that", "Delete previous word" — Dragon's voice command layer is genuinely powerful and has no Whisper equivalent.

Long-session accuracy : Dragon can adapt to your voice over time. It learns your vocabulary, your accent, your quirks.…