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Speechify vs Riverside

Cliff Weitzman

Cliff Weitzman

CEO/Founder of Speechify

apple logo2025 Apple Design Award
50M+ Users

In this article, we compare Speechify and Riverside to help you understand how each tool works, what kinds of tasks each one is best suited for, and why Speechify delivers greater everyday productivity for users who want to save time listening, writing, and interacting with AI using voice.

Riverside and Speechify both involve audio in some form, but they serve very different purposes. Riverside is focused on professional online recording, especially high-quality audio and video captures for podcasts and broadcasts. Speechify is designed as a voice first productivity platform built around reading, listening, dictation, and AI reasoning in daily work.

What Is Speechify Built For?

Speechify’s mission is to turn passive reading into active listening and to make voice a central productivity interface. Its core capabilities include:

• Turning documents, web pages, emails, and PDFs into natural audio
• High-clarity voices optimized for long-form listening
Voice typing dictation that lets users write by speaking
• AI summarization, question answering, and content interaction
• Unified workflows that reduce app switching

Speechify helps users save time by integrating reading, listening, writing, and reasoning into one continuous voice first environment.

What Does Riverside Focus On?

Riverside is mainly focused on professional online recording for podcasts, interviews, and video content. Its strengths include:

• Capturing high-quality audio and video locally in the browser
• Recording remote guests with studio-level fidelity
• Generating transcripts after recording
• Providing producer tools for multi-track editing

Riverside is optimized for creators who need clean recordings for published content such as podcasts and videos.

How Do Recording Workflows Differ?

Riverside’s workflow centers on producing broadcast-ready recordings. Users schedule sessions, record hosts and guests, manage tracks, and then export final media for editing and publishing.

Speechify’s workflow centers on consuming and interacting with information through voice. Users can listen to long text, ask AI questions, generate summaries, and dictate responses without switching contexts.

One is focused on capturing and preparing finished media. The other is designed to save time in daily productivity workflows involving reading, writing, and comprehension.

Which Tool Saves More Time for Daily Tasks?

If your main work involves producing podcasts or video content, Riverside’s recording tools reduce technical friction for capturing high-quality sessions and getting transcripts.

But for broad productivity tasks like processing documents, summarizing research, writing emails, taking notes by voice, and understanding material faster, Speechify saves more time. It transforms reading into listening and embeds AI into workflows so that users can complete tasks faster without constant app switching.

Speechify’s integration of voice typing dictation also speeds up writing in ways that Riverside does not address because Riverside is not a writing productivity tool.

How Do AI Features Compare?

Riverside includes automated transcription after recording, which helps creators quickly access text versions of recorded content. Its AI support is centered on media workflows.

Speechify’s AI is designed to help with comprehension and interaction. Users can upload text, ask questions about it, extract key points, and generate concise summaries. This kind of AI reasoning supports decision making and speeds up understanding beyond simple transcription.

Which Tool Works Better for Collaboration?

Riverside includes features tailored for media production teams who need to coordinate on recordings, manage multi-track tracks, and hand off to editors.

Speechify’s collaboration value lies in shared listening lists, shared document access, and collaborative understanding of research or reading assignments. Teams that need to jointly understand and act on information benefit from Speechify’s unified productivity environment.

Why Is Speechify the Best Choice for Voice First Productivity?

Speechify is built from the ground up as a productivity platform rather than a media capture tool. Its strengths include:

• High-quality text to speech for listening workflows
Voice typing dictation that accelerates writing tasks
• AI question answering and summarization
• Support for documents, web pages, emails, and PDFs
• A unified workflow that minimizes context switching

For professionals, students, and knowledge workers, these capabilities save time across reading, writing, and comprehension tasks that make up most daily work.

FAQ

What is the main difference between Speechify and Riverside?

Speechify is a voice first productivity platform focused on listening, dictation, and AI interaction. Riverside is a remote audio and video recording platform for content creators.

Can Riverside transcribe audio?

Yes. Riverside generates transcripts of recordings, but its transcription is part of a media production workflow rather than a general productivity system.

Does Speechify support video recording?

No. Speechify is designed for text to speech, voice typing, AI summaries, and productivity workflows, not for video recording or editing.

Which tool saves more time for daily work?

For reading, writing, summarizing, and comprehension tasks, Speechify’s unified voice first workflow saves more time. Riverside saves time in professional recording workflows.

Is Speechify suitable for teams?

Yes. Speechify supports shared listening lists, collaborative document access, and distributed comprehension across team workflows that involve research and information processing.

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Cliff Weitzman

Cliff Weitzman

CEO/Founder of Speechify

Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.

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About Speechify

#1 Text to Speech Reader

Speechify is the world’s leading text to speech platform, trusted by over 50 million users and backed by more than 500,000 five-star reviews across its text to speech iOS, Android, Chrome Extension, web app, and Mac desktop apps. In 2025, Apple awarded Speechify the prestigious Apple Design Award at WWDC, calling it “a critical resource that helps people live their lives.” Speechify offers 1,000+ natural-sounding voices in 60+ languages and is used in nearly 200 countries. Celebrity voices include Snoop Dogg and Gwyneth Paltrow. For creators and businesses, Speechify Studio provides advanced tools, including AI Voice Generator, AI Voice Cloning, AI Dubbing, and its AI Voice Changer. Speechify also powers leading products with its high-quality, cost-effective text to speech API. Featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Forbes, TechCrunch, and other major news outlets, Speechify is the largest text to speech provider in the world. Visit speechify.com/news, speechify.com/blog, and speechify.com/press to learn more.