Memoria vs Yap: Features, Pricing & Which Is Better (2026)
A side-by-side comparison of Memoria and Yap — features, pricing, and ideal use cases — to help you decide which AI tool fits your workflow.
Memoria
Anas
On-device photo and video search that indexes the text, speech, objects and faces in your library — no cloud, no account.
Key features
- On-Device OCR: Reads the text inside photos, screenshots, documents, whiteboards and video frames in seven languages, making every written word searchable.
- Local Whisper Transcription: Runs Whisper directly on the device to transcribe the speech in your videos across 99+ languages, so lectures, meetings and voice notes become searchable text.
- Face Detection and Clustering: Detects faces and groups them locally so you can pull up every photo of one person in a single tap, without any cloud face database.
- Object Recognition: Identifies objects in your library so queries like "red bicycle" return matching shots even when nothing was ever tagged.
- Unified Full-Text Index: Combines text, speech, objects and people into one instant search index that lives entirely on the phone.
- Background Indexing: Keeps indexing while the app is closed and prioritises work while the device is charging, so a large library finishes without you babysitting it.
- Zero-Account Privacy Model: No sign-up, no upload and no tracking — analytics are anonymous and opt-out, and the app is GDPR-safe by having nothing to collect.
- One-Time Purchase Unlock: Memoria Plus removes the 250-media indexing cap forever with a single payment processed by Apple or Google, including future on-device models.
Best for
- Finding a Document You Photographed: Recovering an invoice, bill or receipt you snapped months ago by searching the words printed on it rather than scrolling the camera roll.
- Searching Recorded Lectures and Meetings: Locating the moment a specific term was spoken inside a long video by searching the on-device transcript.
- Pulling Every Photo of a Person: Assembling all shots of one friend or family member from a clustered face group for a birthday album or share.
- Recovering Saved Screenshots and Memes: Tracking down a screenshot or meme by the text written on it instead of guessing when you saved it.
- Working Offline or While Travelling: Searching a full media library on a plane or with no signal, since indexing and search never require a network.
- Keeping Sensitive Media Off the Cloud: Making a library of personal, medical or client photos searchable without uploading any of it to a third-party service.
Yap
Frigade
Fast, private, open-source voice dictation for macOS that turns speech into text anywhere you can type, fully on-device.
Key features
- On-Device Transcription: Runs on Apple's on-device Speech framework so audio and transcripts never touch the network.
- Global Shortcut: One rebindable hotkey to start and stop dictation from any application on macOS.
- Pastes Into Focused Field: Text lands in whatever field you were in, whether Terminal, browser, chat app, or code editor.
- Works Offline: No network code at all, so you can dictate on a plane or with no signal.
- Local Searchable History: Every transcript is saved on the Mac and searchable for reuse.
- Homebrew Install: Distributed via Frigade's Homebrew tap for a one-command install on Apple Silicon Macs.
- MIT Open Source: Source code is on GitHub under the MIT license so you can audit or fork it.
- Private by Default: No account, no API key, no telemetry, and no audio leaving the machine.
Best for
- Prompting Coding Agents by Voice: Dictate longer prompts into Claude Code, Cursor, or ChatGPT without typing.
- Fast Slack and Email Drafting: Fire off Slack messages and emails hands-free while multitasking.
- Offline Dictation on Travel: Dictate notes on a flight or in a low-connectivity environment with no cloud dependency.
- Terminal Dictation: Speak commit messages or long shell commands directly into a terminal window.
- Privacy-Sensitive Writing: Dictate confidential notes, medical, or legal content that must never leave the machine.
- Everyday macOS Productivity: Replace typing in browsers, chat apps, and note-taking apps with voice for anyone who prefers speaking.
