Back to guide
🚀 Getting Started

Cloud mode & Bring Your Own Key

2026-05-24 · 4 min

How cloud mode works

VoxWave ships with two cloud providers wired up behind a free proxy: Groq for transcription (Whisper-large-v3-turbo) and OpenAI for cleanup (GPT-4o-mini). You don't need an account or an API key — it just works out of the box.

  • Transcription in < 500ms via Groq (vs a few seconds locally on CPU)
  • Smart cleanup with GPT-4o-mini that understands context and tone
  • Automatic fallback to local Whisper + regex if the cloud is unreachable
  • Default mode is Hybrid — cloud-first with local as a safety net
💡

Cloud mode is free at launch. A Pro plan with included keys may come later for users who want the convenience, but the current default is free for everyone.

Free forever — what that means

There is no paywall, no tier, no signup. The cloud proxy is hosted by Farnel (solo founder) and the bill is covered for now. If usage explodes and the bill becomes painful, a Pro plan may be introduced — but existing free users keep working as they do today.

  • Cloud: free via the VoxWave proxy (no key, no account)
  • Local: also free, runs 100% on your machine (Whisper + regex/Ollama)
  • BYOK: bring your own Groq/OpenAI key — bypasses the proxy entirely

Bring Your Own Key (BYOK)

Since v0.2.2, you can paste your own Groq or OpenAI API key directly in VoxWave Settings. This bypasses the VoxWave proxy entirely — requests go straight from your machine to the provider, billed against your own account.

  • Groq key: free tier, no credit card required — great for fast transcription with your own quota
  • OpenAI key: pay-as-you-go cleanup with GPT-4o-mini using your own billing
  • Keys are stored locally, encrypted with Fernet (~/.voxwave/apikeys.enc, file permissions 0600)
  • Keys never touch VoxWave servers — they only travel between your machine and the provider you chose
  • Hybrid mode (the default) still uses the VoxWave proxy and remains the recommended option for most users
  1. 1Open Settings → Advanced
  2. 2Pick 'Your own Groq API key' in the transcription dropdown, paste your key
  3. 3Pick 'Your own OpenAI API key' in the cleaning dropdown, paste your key
  4. 4Click Save — VoxWave reloads the providers immediately, no restart required
💡

BYOK is for power users who already have provider keys and prefer using their own quota. If you're not sure which mode to pick, leave 'Hybrid' selected — it just works.

🔒

Where do I get a key? Groq: console.groq.com (free, instant). OpenAI: platform.openai.com (requires a card on file).