Dhito vs Elephas
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The short answer
They start from opposite ends. Elephas asks you to put documents into a "Brain" and then answers questions across all of them, with a source for each answer. It reads Word, PowerPoint and Excel as well as PDFs, and its Team plan shares Brains across a firm. Dhito indexes the folders you already have, as they are, and finds a file from a description of what is in it, including screenshots and recordings. It then chats with that one file, or runs one of around 50 local file tools on it. If your job is asking questions across a known set of documents, Elephas does that and Dhito does not. If your job is finding things in the mess you already have, Dhito does it and Elephas does not. Elephas is $19 a month; Dhito is $4.99 a month or $99 once.
Dhito vs Elephas at a glance
| Elephas | Dhito | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Q&A over documents you collect into Brains | Local AI search over your whole disk, plus file tools |
| What gets indexed | Documents and web pages you add | The folders you point it at, as they are |
| Answers across many documents at once | Yes, with sources | No — chat is one file at a time |
| Word, PowerPoint, Excel | Yes | No (Word yes; PowerPoint, Excel and iWork no) |
| Scanned PDFs and images of text | Yes | Yes, local OCR |
| Searches what a photo shows | No | Yes, local vision captions |
| Searches audio and video speech | No | Yes, local Whisper transcripts |
| Apple Notes and Obsidian | Markdown files you add | Apple Notes and vaults, found and kept in sync |
| Acts on files | No — answers only, by design | ~50 local file tools: convert, compress, merge, strip EXIF |
| Launches apps, instant answers | No | Apps by purpose; ~20 answer rows |
| Where the AI runs | Elephas AI (cloud) by default; on-computer model or your own key optional | Always on-device; no cloud path |
| Needs the internet | To sign in and confirm your plan | Only for licence checks and the daily currency rate |
| Teams | Shared Brains, roles, usage caps | No team features |
| Cost | $19/mo Personal, $29/mo Professional, $29/person Team; no lifetime | $4.99/mo or $99 once, after a 14-day trial |
| Hardware | Apple Silicon, macOS 14+ | Apple Silicon, macOS 13+ |
Two ways to get answers from your documents
Both apps exist because people want to ask their own documents questions without pasting them into a public chatbot. They take very different routes to it.
Elephas works like a reference library you build. You create a Brain, add the contracts, policies, papers or client files that belong in it, and then ask questions. The answer draws on everything in the Brain and cites where each part came from. It reads PDFs (scanned ones included), Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Markdown, text, CSV, HTML, EPUB and images of text, and you can add a web page by its address. Elephas is clear about what it is not: it "does not send emails, browse the web, or automate your apps".
Dhito works like a search engine for the disk you already have. You point it at your folders and it indexes them in place: text by meaning, images by what they show, recordings by what was said. You find a file by describing it, then ask that file questions, or run a tool on it.
*Elephas relaunched in 2026 with new plans and a narrower focus. Everything here was checked against its site in October 2026.*
Where Elephas is genuinely better
- Answers across many documents. Ask "what do our client contracts say about termination?" and Elephas answers from every contract in the Brain. Dhito's chat works on one file at a time. If cross-document answers are the job, this decides it.
- Office formats. Elephas reads PowerPoint and Excel. Dhito does not index PowerPoint, Excel, Pages, Keynote or Numbers at all.
- Teams. Shared Team Brains, manager, contributor and reader roles, one AI policy for everyone, usage caps and encrypted team sync. Dhito has no team features.
- Sync between Macs. Professional covers three computers with optional end-to-end encrypted sync. Dhito has no sync.
- Web pages as sources. Add a URL to a Brain. Dhito indexes files on disk only.
Where Dhito is genuinely better
- It searches what you already have. Nothing to curate. The PDF you saved in 2023 and forgot about is in the index, and a description of it is enough to find it. Elephas only knows the documents you thought to add.
- Images and recordings. Dhito captions photos and screenshots, so they are found by what they show, and transcribes audio and video on the Mac so a search lands on the minute something was said. Elephas reads images of text, but not what a photo shows, and does not cover recordings.
- Local without configuring it. Dhito's models ship with the app and run on the Neural Engine. There is no cloud model to switch off and no account. Elephas answers from its own cloud AI unless you choose the on-computer model or your own API key, and it needs the internet to sign in and confirm your plan.
- It does something with the file. Around 50 local file tools: compress a PDF under a set size, merge or split PDFs, convert HEIC to JPG, strip location data from photos, trim a video. Every tool writes a new file and never overwrites the original. Elephas answers questions only.
- Notes, apps and quick answers. Apple Notes and Obsidian vaults searched by meaning, found automatically. Apps matched by what they are for, so "messaging app" finds WhatsApp. About 20 answer rows for sums, conversions, time zones, hashes and QR codes.
- Price. $4.99 a month or $99 once, against $19 or $29 a month with no lifetime option.
Which one fits your files
If you are a lawyer, analyst or researcher with a defined set of documents and you want answers that pull from all of them, Elephas is built for that, and its Team plan makes sense for a firm. Choose its on-computer model if the documents are confidential.
If your problem is "I know I have this somewhere", across years of downloads, screenshots, recordings and notes, Dhito is the one built for it. It is also the only one of the two that will compress the file you find so it fits in an email.
Some people will want both. They do not get in each other's way: Elephas holds the Brains you curate, and Dhito searches everything else.
The verdict
Pick Elephas if you want answers drawn from many documents at once, need Office files covered, or are setting this up for a team. Pick Dhito if you want to find files you have lost track of, search inside recordings and images, or compress, convert and merge what you find, all without anything leaving the Mac. Dhito costs about a quarter as much, and has a one-time option.
Who should use what
You want answers drawn from many documents at once
Elephas
Elephas answers across every document in a Brain, with sources. Dhito chats with one file at a time.
Your documents are PowerPoint or Excel
Elephas
Elephas reads both. Dhito does not index PowerPoint, Excel or iWork files.
You are rolling this out to a team
Elephas
Shared Brains, roles, usage caps and team sync. Dhito has no team features.
You cannot remember where you saved it
Dhito
Dhito indexes your folders as they are, so a description finds the file. Elephas only knows the documents you added.
You work with recordings, photos or screenshots
Dhito
Dhito transcribes audio and video and captions images on the Mac. Elephas reads images of text but not recordings or what a photo shows.
You want nothing to leave the Mac, without setting anything up
Dhito
Dhito has no cloud model and no account. Elephas can run an on-computer model, but its default is its own cloud AI and it signs in online.
Honest limitations
Where Dhito falls short
- Chat works on one file at a time. It cannot answer a question by drawing on several documents at once, which is Elephas's main strength.
- Does not index PowerPoint, Excel, Pages, Keynote or Numbers files.
- No team features, no sync between Macs and no web pages as sources.
- The first index of a large library takes hours, because transcription and captioning are real work.
- Apple Silicon only, macOS 13 or later.
Where Elephas falls short
- Only knows the documents you add to a Brain, so it will not find a file you forgot you had.
- No audio or video transcription, and images are read for their text rather than what they show.
- Answers come from Elephas's cloud AI by default; the on-computer model and your own API key are options you choose. Signing in and confirming your plan needs the internet.
- Answers questions only. No file tools, no app launching, no instant answers.
- $19 a month for Personal and $29 for Professional, with no lifetime option.
- Apple Silicon and macOS 14 or later. No mobile app for the new Elephas, and Windows is listed as coming soon.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Elephas and Dhito?
Elephas answers questions across a collection of documents you put into a "Brain", with sources, and reads Office files. Dhito indexes the folders you already have, finds files by meaning, including images and recordings, lets you chat with one file at a time, and runs around 50 local file tools. Elephas is better for cross-document answers and teams; Dhito is better for finding things and acting on them.
Does Elephas work offline?
Partly. Once you download its on-computer model, answers are generated on your Mac, and your documents, search and past chats are available offline. Signing in and confirming your plan needs an internet connection, and the default AI on its plans is Elephas's own cloud service. Dhito's models always run on your Mac and need no account; it only goes online for licence checks and the daily currency rate table.
Can Dhito answer questions across several documents like Elephas?
No. Dhito's chat works on one file at a time, with citations from that file. Its search runs across everything, so you can find the right documents quickly, but it will not combine an answer from several of them. If that is what you need, Elephas does it.
Which is cheaper?
Dhito. It is $4.99 a month, or $99 once for a licence that never renews, after a 14-day trial. Elephas Personal is $19 a month ($180 a year), Professional is $29 a month ($288 a year), and Team is $29 per person per month. Elephas has no lifetime option.
Does Elephas search Apple Notes?
Elephas reads Markdown and text files you add to a Brain. It does not list Apple Notes as a source. Dhito reads Apple Notes from the Notes database on your Mac, behind the Full Disk Access macOS requires, and finds Obsidian vaults automatically.
Can I use Elephas and Dhito together?
Yes. They do different jobs. Use Elephas for the curated document sets you want answers from, and Dhito to search the rest of your Mac and convert, compress or merge what you find.
Try Dhito on your own files
Fourteen days free, no account required to search. Point it at one folder and run the query that made you go looking for an alternative in the first place.
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