Google Cloud vs LocalWhisper
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Google Cloud
Manage your Google Cloud services on your iPhone or iPad. Monitor billing, status, and critical issues. Create custom dashboards, access Cloud Shell, and SSH into VMs for direct control.
- Cloud service management
- Billing and status monitoring
- Customizable dashboards
- Compute Engine/App Engine monitoring
- SSH access to VMs
- Cloud Shell access
- Incident and error response
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The app helps you manage your services running on Google Cloud directly from your Apple iPhone or iPad: • Stay connected to the cloud and check billing, status, and critical issues. • Create your own custom dashboard to produce an overview of your Google Cloud services. • Monitor the state of your Compute Engine and App Engine resources with the ability to SSH into your VMs. • Access to Cloud Shell to perform any Google Cloud (gcloud) operation. • View and respond to incidents, errors, and logging. We plan to ship new features regularly and continually improve your user experience. Please give us your feedback in the app by tapping the menu button in the upper-left corner, selecting Help & Feedback, and then Send feedback.
LocalWhisper
This app offers on-device speech-to-text transcription powered by AI. It prioritizes user privacy by processing all audio locally, with options for free offline use or a one-time purchase for enhanced features and accuracy. Advanced users can also connect to their own Whisper servers.
- On-device speech-to-text transcription
- Privacy-focused, no cloud uploads
- Offline functionality
- AI-powered grammar and punctuation cleanup
- Customizable phrase keys and user dictionary
- Optional connection to personal Whisper servers
- Hands-free dictation with slide controls
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Speech-to-text that runs entirely on your iPhone. No subscription. No cloud. No word limits. Pay once, dictate forever. LocalWhisper is a dictation keyboard powered by Whisper AI. Your voice is transcribed on-device and never uploaded anywhere. Optional AI cleanup polishes grammar and punctuation — also on-device. Why pay monthly to transcribe your own voice? LocalWhisper's free tier has no word limit and works completely offline. Want even better accuracy? A single one-time purchase — less than the price of a coffee — unlocks our most powerful models. Forever. No trials, no renewals, no surprises. WHY GO LOCAL? Every time you dictate into a cloud-based keyboard, your voice is uploaded, processed, and stored on someone else's server. Passwords, private messages, medical notes, journal entries — all of it. LocalWhisper takes a different approach. The AI runs on your device. Your audio is processed in memory, used for transcription, and immediately discarded. There is nothing to hack, nothing to leak, and nothing to sell. Your words never leave your phone. HOLD TO RECORD. SLIDE TO CONTROL. Long-press the mic to record. Release to transcribe. Slide right to lock recording for hands-free dictation. Slide left to discard. It feels natural from the first use. Made a mistake? Undo the last dictation within 30 seconds. Need to tweak the wording? Edit your transcription before it is inserted. Changed your mind? Cancel mid-transcription. You are always in control. THREE WAYS TO TRANSCRIBE Free — A capable Whisper model, bundled and ready to go. Works offline with no purchase needed and no word limit. Genuinely useful for everyday notes, messages, and quick dictation. Pro — For the price of a coffee, unlock Apple Neural Engine acceleration. Choose from models up to Large v3 for faster, more accurate transcription. One-time purchase. No subscription. Yours forever. Server — Connect to your own Whisper server running on your Mac, home lab, or anywhere reachable over Tailscale or your local network. Run the largest models on your own hardware with zero compromise on privacy or accuracy. AI-POWERED ENHANCEMENT Connect your own LLM (Ollama, Groq, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint) for automatic grammar and punctuation cleanup. Run inference locally on your Mac over Tailscale — no cloud required. Choose a style that fits you: General, Developer, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, or Royal. BUILT FOR PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT THEIR TOOLS - Custom phrase keys — configurable shortcuts for punctuation, symbols, and cursor movement - User dictionary — set find-and-replace rules so your terminology is always correct - Live status display — see your provider, model, and latency at a glance - Refined dark theme with fluid animations — a keyboard you will actually enjoy using PRIVACY IS THE ARCHITECTURE LocalWhisper collects no data whatsoever. No accounts. No analytics. No telemetry. The App Privacy label reads "Data Not Collected" because that is the literal truth. GET STARTED IN UNDER A MINUTE 1. Download LocalWhisper 2. Open Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards > Add LocalWhisper 3. Enable Allow Full Access (required for local app communication only — no data leaves your device) 4. Switch to the LocalWhisper keyboard in any app 5. Hold the mic and speak Free to download. Free to use. No subscription, no ads, no word limits. Upgrade once if you want the best — it costs less than a morning coffee.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: LocalWhisper at 100% against Google Cloud's 30%. LocalWhisper also leads on rating (4.5 vs 3.4). Google Cloud's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and ratings volume (102 vs 2). On price, ads, monetization model and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. LocalWhisper sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Google Cloud asks for nothing beyond the download.
LocalWhisper holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 3.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Google Cloud has 102 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 30% of Google Cloud's written reviews are positive against 100% of LocalWhisper's.
Google Cloud ships an update weekly, LocalWhisper every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 28, 2026 and September 14, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Google Cloud | LocalWhisper |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.4 (102 ratings) | 4.5 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 29.7% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 102 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 3 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 117 MB | 41 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Kevin Mok | |
Customer experience
Google Cloud
LocalWhisper
Bugs and requests
Google Cloud
Reported bugs
24 issues- Cloud Shell stuck on 'preparing to connect' screen
- Cloud Shell disconnects when switching apps
- SSH authentication failures
- App crashes when viewing error console details
- Logs page continuously refreshing
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- Cannot view saved dashboards from web
- Saved queries not displaying correctly
- Permission errors blocking access to projects
- Billing section shows incorrect date ranges
- Incident notifications not working
- Device registration process failing
- Cloud Shell input issues with special keys (Ctrl+A, Ctrl+E)
- Cannot select or copy text in Cloud Shell
- SSH return key not working properly in some contexts
- App crashes after updates
- 2-factor authentication sign-in broken
- Incidents marked resolved still show as new
- Logs missing with applied filters
- App crashes when viewing log entry details in dark mode
- External keyboard support broken on iPad
- Notification permissions not requested on iOS
- Cannot change logged-in account
- Project switching broken
- Scrolling issues in logs and traces
Requested features
20 requests- Cloud Run service support
- Cloud Tasks management
- Cloud Build integration
- Custom dashboard access from mobile
- Dark mode for iPad
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- Cloud Shell full-screen mode
- Better keyboard support for external keyboards
- Account switching capability
- Notification management improvements
- GKE (Google Kubernetes Engine) support
- Cloud Functions monitoring
- Datalab integration
- API quota viewing
- Cloud Storage bucket upload/replace functionality
- Instance group management
- HTTP Load Balancing controls
- Password protection for app
- Font size adjustment in console
- Improved SSH/terminal UX
- BigQuery support
LocalWhisper
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Google Cloud
No in-app purchases
LocalWhisper
- LocalWhisper Pro$4.99









