Silestis vs free transcripts & doing it by hand
Free captions and manual note-taking work — until you need accuracy, timestamps, search, and answers.
You can copy YouTube's auto-captions or paste a link into a free transcript site. For a one-off, that's fine. But free captions are often unpunctuated, speaker-blind, and wrong on names and jargon — and they leave you with a wall of text you still have to read.
Silestis turns the same video into something you can actually use: an accurate, timestamped transcript with speaker labels, AI answers that cite the exact moment, semantic search across everything, and one-click notes, chapters, and flashcards. The question isn't "free vs paid" — it's how much time the free route quietly costs you.
| Silestis | Free / manual | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free to start, then from €8.99 | €0 |
| Accurate punctuation & names | Yes | Often poor |
| Speaker labels (who said what) | ||
| Timestamped AI answers ([mm:ss]) | ||
| Search across many recordings | ||
| Notes, chapters & flashcards | ||
| Works on 1800+ sites + uploads | Varies | |
| Time to a usable result | ~2 min, hands-off | Manual cleanup |
When to use which
- Free captions are fine for a single short clip you'll read once.
- Silestis pays off the moment you transcribe regularly, need accuracy or timestamps, or want to search and ask questions across many recordings.
See how it works for YouTube videos, lectures, and podcasts — or start free on the pricing page.
free transcripts — FAQ
Can't I just use YouTube's free captions?
For a quick read, yes. But auto-captions usually lack punctuation and speaker labels, get names and jargon wrong, and aren't searchable across videos. Silestis gives you an accurate, timestamped, searchable transcript you can ask questions of.
Is there a free plan?
Yes — Silestis includes 3 free transcriptions so you can compare the output to free captions yourself. No credit card required.
How is this faster than doing it manually?
A one-hour video is transcribed hands-off in about two minutes, then you ask questions instead of scrubbing — versus manually cleaning captions or re-watching to find one quote.
Every video you watch could be searchable.
Install the extension, hit transcribe, and never lose what was said in a lecture, meeting, or podcast again.
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