Open source alternative to Speechify, NaturalReader and Voice Dream Reader
Last verified
Convert any Mac text to speech with one shortcut, using Rafael (Fish Audio) online or Piper offline. MIT licensed, Apple Silicon only, no account.
Select text from any email, contract, PDF, or article and listen while multitasking. The floating player stays out of the way and closes automatically; the shortcut works without switching apps.
Text is primarily in English or another non-Portuguese language. Rafael and Piper both speak with a Brazilian Portuguese accent, which sounds unnatural on non-Portuguese text.
Piper runs entirely on your Mac: after the initial model download, no text, no audio requests, and no analytics leave the device. Works on air-gapped machines and meets strict data handling requirements without any server configuration.
You need voices in multiple languages or want a larger voice library. Piper offers one Brazilian Portuguese voice; if voice variety is the priority, a managed service covers more ground.
The server API is a single POST endpoint with a documented request and response shape. Point the app at your own server URL via config.json or the TEXT_TO_SPEECH_SERVER environment variable to swap the backend entirely.
You have no interest in server customization. The public server works without any configuration; self-hosting is optional, not required.
Reading long documents, emails, and PDFs on screen strains the eyes, and listening while doing something else is often more efficient. Mac's built-in text-to-speech voices sound robotic, and switching between apps to use a dedicated reader breaks the reading flow. Most natural-voice alternatives are subscription-based commercial apps that require an account, charge monthly for quality voices, and send all text to a cloud service regardless of how sensitive the content is.
For Brazilian Portuguese speakers the pain is sharper: most text-to-speech tools treat Portuguese as an afterthought, offering at most one generic voice with poor intonation. Getting a natural-sounding voice for everyday reading on macOS has meant either accepting a subscription or accepting a robotic voice.
The Piper voice model runs entirely on your Mac after a one-time download of about 63 MB from Hugging Face. No text leaves the device; playback works without any network connection. Rafael, the online voice, fetches audio from Fish Audio over HTTPS and does not store the text on the server.
The default shortcut Cmd+Shift+S reads whatever text is selected in any Mac app: email clients, PDF viewers, browsers, text editors. The app copies the selection, restores your clipboard to its previous contents, and starts reading without interrupting the foreground app. The shortcut is configurable in the settings window.
A small floating player appears on screen while reading, showing the word being spoken, and closes automatically when the selection ends. Esc stops playback; Space pauses and resumes; left and right arrows step between paragraph-sized parts; minus and plus keys adjust speed without opening the settings.
Speed can be set to half, normal, 1.5x, or double rate. On long documents, faster playback shortens a listening session without losing the thread; slower works for dense technical text or for following along with a printed page.
Long selections are split into paragraph-sized parts, three processed at a time, so the first part starts playing within seconds even on a several-thousand-word document. Parts are read in order, and navigation between them is available with the arrow keys in the floating player.
Speechify is one of the most widely used paid text-to-speech services, available on iOS, Android, macOS, and as a browser extension. Its core value is a large library of AI voices across dozens of languages; Speechify Premium starts at $139/year for the best voices.
| Feature | Text to Speech | Speechify |
|---|---|---|
| License | MIT | Proprietary |
| Price | Free | $139+/year |
| Self-hosting | Optional (custom server) | No |
| Offline voice | Yes (Piper) | No |
| Languages | Brazilian Portuguese only | 30+ languages |
| Platform | macOS (Apple Silicon) | iOS, Android, macOS, Chrome |
Text to Speech is the better choice for Mac users reading primarily in Brazilian Portuguese who want offline capability and zero cost. Speechify is the better choice when you need multilingual support, cross-platform sync, or AI-driven features like reading speed training on mobile.
NaturalReader provides a web app, a desktop app, and a Chrome extension with support for 20+ languages. Free accounts use basic voices; natural AI voices require a subscription starting around $9.99/month.
| Feature | Text to Speech | NaturalReader |
|---|---|---|
| License | MIT | Proprietary |
| Price | Free | Free basic / $9.99+/month |
| Offline playback | Yes (Piper) | No |
| Languages | Brazilian Portuguese only | 20+ languages |
| Platform | macOS (Apple Silicon) | Web, Windows, macOS |
NaturalReader is the stronger pick for multilingual needs; it supports English, Spanish, French, and many others with natural AI voices across platforms. Text to Speech is the better fit for Brazilian Portuguese Mac users who want MIT-licensed open source code, an offline option, and no ongoing cost.
Run the setup script to install on macOS 11 or newer on Apple Silicon.
```bash
curl -fsSL https://blob.ciromaciel.click/tools/text-to-speech/install.sh | bash
```Yes. The app uses Accessibility permission to copy whatever text is selected in the foreground app, so it works in email clients, web browsers, PDF readers, word processors, and terminals. If an app does not support standard text selection, the shortcut will not capture text from it.
Yes, once the voice model is downloaded. Piper downloads about 63 MB from Hugging Face the first time you select it, then runs entirely on your Mac. After that, no text and no audio requests leave the device.
The app is MIT licensed and free to download and use. There is no account, no trial period, and no paid tier. Both Rafael (online via Fish Audio) and Piper (fully offline) are included at no cost.
It can read text in any language, but both available voices speak Brazilian Portuguese, so non-Portuguese text is read with a Portuguese accent. For native-sounding English or Spanish voices, tools like Speechify or NaturalReader offer a wider multilingual library.
When using Rafael (the online voice), your text travels over HTTPS to the tool's server, which forwards it to Fish Audio to generate audio and returns the result to your Mac. Neither service stores the text. When using Piper (the offline voice), text never leaves your Mac at all. No account is created and no analytics are collected by the app.
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