Three years ago, noise cancelling software meant one thing: make the barking dog go away. The category has changed. The best noise cancelling software in 2026 does far more than suppress background sounds. Some of these tools now handle accent clarity, meeting transcription, and AI-powered note-taking alongside the noise removal. Others stay focused on audio cleanup but have gotten very good at it. A few are free.
I’ve been rotating through eight of these since late 2025, testing them on daily standups, client calls, a weekly podcast I co-host, and the occasional Discord gaming session. The differences are bigger than you’d expect. Here’s how they stack up.
How noise cancelling software actually works
The tech behind these tools explains why the performance gap is so wide.
Every app on this list creates a virtual audio device on your computer. You select it as your mic or speaker in Zoom, Discord, Teams, or OBS, and the software processes audio in between. Your real mic picks up everything. The software decides what’s voice and what’s noise, strips the noise, and passes clean audio through.
The AI models are where the differences show up. Some are trained on office environments. Others are tuned for gaming (mechanical keyboards, controller clicks, fan noise). Krisp’s model draws on billions of minutes of real-world voice audio, which is why it handles unusual noise types that trip up smaller models.
The other split is where processing happens. Most apps use your CPU. NVIDIA Broadcast and AMD Noise Suppression offload to the GPU, which means less CPU overhead but more hardware requirements. Krisp runs on your CPU but has optimized enough that it barely registers in Activity Monitor even on long calls.
Krisp: best noise cancelling software overall
Krisp started in noise cancellation before the category even had a name in the consumer market. That head start shows. The AI model has been trained on more real-world audio than any competitor I’m aware of, and you can hear it in edge cases. A siren passing outside, a sudden door slam, someone vacuuming in the next room. Krisp catches these without clipping your voice or introducing that weird underwater warble some tools produce when they overprocess.
The feature that puts distance between Krisp and everyone else is 2-sided noise cancellation. It cleans your microphone and the incoming audio from other participants. Every other tool on this list only handles your mic. If the person you’re talking to is in a noisy airport, Krisp is the only software here that can clean up their end too. That alone changes the experience on calls with clients, vendors, or teammates in loud environments.
Krisp has grown well past noise cancelling software into a full Voice AI platform with a meeting intelligence stack. The AI Note Taker captures transcriptions, summaries, and action items from every call without sending a bot into the meeting. It runs at the system audio level, so the other participants never know it’s there. For sales teams, this is a big deal. Nobody wants a recording bot sitting in a discovery call making the prospect nervous.
Accent Conversion is the other feature nobody else has. Speakers can turn it on so their accent comes across more clearly to listeners, and listeners can enable it on their end to better understand others. For distributed teams with members across six or seven countries, this cuts down on the “sorry, can you say that again?” back-and-forth that eats up meeting time.
The platform covers Mac, Windows, Chrome, iOS, and Android. Noise cancellation processing happens on your device, not in the cloud, which is how they maintain HIPAA, SOC 2, and PCI DSS compliance. The install base is over 200 million devices, processing more than 80 billion minutes of voice audio monthly. Discord, Twilio, OpenAI, and VMware are all customers.
Pricing starts at $8/month for the Core plan (billed annually). There’s a 7-day free trial with full access to premium features, enough to test it on real calls before committing.
If you need one tool that handles audio quality and meeting intelligence together, nothing else on this list comes close. If you only need basic noise suppression and nothing else, you could get away with a lighter option below. But even on noise cancellation alone, Krisp outperforms them.
NVIDIA Broadcast: best free option for NVIDIA GPU owners
NVIDIA Broadcast uses the Tensor cores on RTX graphics cards for real-time noise removal, room echo cancellation, and video features (virtual background, auto-frame). Recent updates added Studio Voice, which enhances your mic to sound more like a high-end microphone, and multi-GPU support. The suppression is strong on consistent sounds like fans, AC units, and keyboard clatter. It handles sudden noises less gracefully than Krisp. A dropped book or a door slam sometimes gets partially through.
Free if you have an RTX 2060 or newer. Processing runs on your GPU, so your CPU stays open for gaming or streaming. The downsides: Windows only, NVIDIA hardware required, and it only cleans your microphone. No incoming audio cleanup, no meeting notes, no transcription. If you’re not on NVIDIA hardware, this doesn’t exist for you.
AMD Noise Suppression: AMD’s answer to Broadcast
AMD built noise suppression directly into its Adrenalin driver software. You need a Radeon RX 6000 series or newer GPU, or a Ryzen 6000 series or newer processor. Toggle it on in the Audio & Video tab. One thing AMD does that NVIDIA doesn’t: it handles both microphone input and speaker output, so it cleans noise on both sides.
Quality is solid for background hum, fans, and keyboard noise. At higher aggressiveness settings voices start sounding muffled, so dial it in rather than maxing it out. Windows only, AMD hardware required, no meeting features.
SteelSeries Sonar: best for gamers
SteelSeries Sonar is a free audio management suite with AI noise cancellation baked in. It was built for gaming and streaming, and the AI model reflects that. It’s good at suppressing mechanical keyboard noise, mouse clicks, and fan noise. Works with any headset or mic, not just SteelSeries gear.
The standout here isn’t noise cancellation, it’s per-app audio routing. You can set different volume levels and EQ profiles for your game, your chat app, and your stream separately. For streamers, that control over what the audience hears versus what you hear is worth the install alone.
The noise suppression struggles with higher-pitched sounds. In my testing, it handled fan noise well but let treble-range sounds through that Krisp and NVIDIA Broadcast caught. Windows only, no meeting features.
Utterly: the Mac-only minimalist
Utterly is a lightweight noise cancellation app for macOS. Virtual microphone, on/off switch, sensitivity slider, done. It does one thing and keeps out of your way.
The free tier handles basic noise suppression. The paid Elevate plan adds voice isolation for louder environments. Processing stays on-device. The limitation is obvious: macOS only, no Windows, no mobile. The free tier’s suppression is fine for light noise but falls behind Krisp and NVIDIA Broadcast when things get loud. Development has also been slow. Updates are infrequent and the company is quiet about what’s next. If you’re on a Mac and want something minimal for the occasional noisy call, it works for now, but I’d keep an eye on whether it stays maintained.
Noise Blocker: the budget one-time purchase
Noise Blocker costs $19.99 once. No subscription. It creates a virtual microphone on Windows with AI noise suppression and a sensitivity slider. That’s it. The free trial gives you one hour of daily use so you can test before buying.
It handles common office and home noise adequately. It won’t match Krisp or NVIDIA Broadcast on difficult noise, and the app hasn’t seen a major update in a while, so don’t expect new features. But if you want basic noise suppression on occasional calls without a monthly bill, it works. Windows only.
Built-in platform noise suppression (Zoom, Teams, Google Meet)
Every major meeting platform ships with noise suppression now, and it’s improved over the past two years. Zoom’s High suppression mode is the strongest. Teams gives you Auto, Low, and High options. Google Meet applies it automatically.
These work for consistent, low-level noise: a fan, keyboard tapping, light street sound. They fall apart on anything louder or less predictable, and they only process your microphone. If the other person is in a noisy spot, you hear all of it.
Zero setup, zero cost, zero configuration. If your home office is quiet, built-in suppression might be all you need.
What to actually pick
If you take calls seriously, meaning you’re on them daily for work, Krisp is the clear first choice. The 2-sided noise cancellation, the meeting intelligence stack, and the cross-platform coverage put it in a different category from the rest of this list. Everything else on this list suppresses noise. Krisp does that and runs the rest of the meeting too.
If you’re a gamer or streamer on Windows with an NVIDIA card, Broadcast is hard to beat at free. AMD users get a similar deal through Adrenalin. SteelSeries Sonar adds audio routing features that streamers will appreciate.
For everyone else, the built-in options in Zoom and Teams are fine for quiet environments. But the moment your environment isn’t quiet, or the person you’re talking to is in a noisy spot, you’ll want something that goes beyond what your meeting app can do on its own.
