Custom cursor
Juno
Download

Hands-free control

Juno vs Dragon

Dragon has had no Mac product since 2018, and Dragon Anywhere stopped taking subscriptions on 1 July 2026. If you are here, you are looking for what comes next.

For twenty years Dragon was the answer. It still is, in the places it never left: Windows, and the medical and legal practices whose vocabularies Nuance spent decades building.

On a Mac it is a dead end. Dragon Professional Individual for Mac was discontinued in 2018, the last version does not run properly on Apple Silicon, and Dragon Anywhere stopped selling and renewing subscriptions on 1 July 2026. Nuance has been part of Microsoft since 2022 and the consumer line has not moved.

So this page is less a comparison than a migration note. Juno dictates on macOS with Whisper running on your own machine, in 99 languages, for nothing. And because it is an agent rather than a transcriber, it can also do the thing you dictated.

Side by side

  • Available for Mac today

    Juno
    Yes, macOS 14+

    Dragon
    No, discontinued in 2018

  • Runs on Apple Silicon

    Juno
    Yes, natively

    Dragon
    No

  • Still sold

    Juno
    Free

    Dragon
    Windows only, Dragon Anywhere ended July 2026

  • Speech recognition

    Juno
    Whisper, on device

    Dragon
    Nuance engine, on device on Windows

  • Voice training required

    Juno
    No

    Dragon
    Yes, historically

  • Specialist vocabularies

    Juno
    General purpose

    Dragon
    Deep medical and legal editions

  • Can carry out what you said

    Juno
    Yes, drives any app on screen

    Dragon
    Limited voice commands

  • Languages

    Juno
    99+

    Dragon
    Varies by edition

  • Price

    Juno
    Free

    Dragon
    Around $699 for Dragon Professional on Windows

Where Dragon is the better pick

  • On Windows, in medicine and law, Dragon's specialist vocabularies are still the deepest available and nothing here matches them.
  • Decades of accuracy work on domain terminology that general models still fumble.
  • Established compliance and procurement paths that hospitals and firms already have signed off.
  • If you have a working Dragon setup on Windows, none of this is a reason to touch it.

Where Juno pulls ahead

  • It exists on the Mac, which at this point is the whole argument.
  • Native on Apple Silicon, with no compatibility archaeology.
  • No voice training. It works on the first sentence.
  • Free, with transcription running on device.
  • It can act on the dictation rather than only typing it.

If you are migrating off Dragon

The honest shortlist for a Mac is short. For dictation alone, any of the local Whisper apps will serve you, and we point at VoiceInk and Superwhisper without complaint. Pick Juno when you want the dictation to be free and local and you also want the thing you described to actually get done. What none of them carry over is a specialist medical or legal vocabulary, so if that is what Dragon was doing for you, test carefully before you commit.

Questions people ask

Is there any version of Dragon that works on a modern Mac?
No. Dragon Professional Individual for Mac 6 was the last release, it was discontinued in 2018, and it does not run properly on Apple Silicon or recent macOS. Dragon Anywhere covered iOS and Android but stopped taking new subscriptions and renewals on 1 July 2026.
Will Juno match Dragon's accuracy on medical terms?
Probably not, and you should test before you rely on it. Dragon's specialist editions had decades of vocabulary work behind them. Juno runs general purpose Whisper models, which are excellent on ordinary speech and weaker on dense domain jargon. A custom vocabulary is not something it offers today.
Do I have to train Juno on my voice?
No. Whisper needs no enrolment. Install it and start talking.
What does it cost?
The app is free and dictation is local, so dictation costs nothing. Agent tasks run on a model you supply, either the Claude plan you already pay for or an API key.

Free, and the source is public. macOS 14+.

Download Juno