Let's start with what is fair: Dragon is an excellent product. Its recognition in English is still the benchmark, its command macros are unrivalled and there are firms in the English-speaking world that have been built on top of it for fifteen years without complaint.
The problem is not Dragon. The problem is Dragon in Spanish, in 2026, for a firm that is not in the United States or the United Kingdom.
In short: Dragon Legal, for dictating in English or controlling the computer by voice: Windows only, not listed on Nuance's Spanish website and with no published price. ablalo, for briefs in Spanish on Windows and Mac: your voice processed on your computer, 22 to 29 euros a month plus VAT.
The point that decides almost everything: language
There is a very widespread confusion that is worth clearing up. «Dragon» is not one product but several, and they don't all speak the same languages:
- Dragon NaturallySpeaking (desktop). The home range in Spanish stopped at Premium 13, a product from the middle of the last decade, and it is listed as discontinued. On Nuance's Spanish website only Dragon Professional v16 appears today, for Windows and with no published price.
- Dragon Home. The home range is no longer in Nuance's catalogue.
- Dragon for Mac. The last version is Dragon for Mac 6, from 2018.
- Dragon Legal / Dragon Legal Anywhere. This is the line that gives this article its name, and here is the important nuance: its value is the specialised legal vocabulary (trained, according to Nuance, on more than 400 million words of legal documents) and the automatic formatting of legal citations. Nuance lists Dragon Legal on its United States and German websites, and Dragon Legal Anywhere (in the cloud) also on its United Kingdom and Australian ones. Neither of the two appears on the Spanish one.
In plain terms: even if you get a Dragon licence that recognises Spanish, the «Legal» in Dragon Legal (the part that sets it apart) is sold for other markets, mainly English-speaking ones, and it is not designed for article 1124 of the Código Civil (the Spanish Civil Code) or for the Audiencia Provincial de Bizkaia (the Provincial Court of Bizkaia).
If a reseller offers you «Dragon Legal in Spanish»: before paying, ask in writing for two specific things. One, exactly what language the licence recognises. Two, whether the specialised legal vocabulary and citation formatting are available in Spanish or only in English. It is a legitimate question and the answer changes the whole purchase.
Point-by-point comparison
| Dragon Legal | ablalo | |
|---|---|---|
| Up-to-date Spanish | Check with the maker | Yes, it is its main language |
| Legal vocabulary | Yes, geared to common law | 30,000+ terms of Spanish law |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| Native Mac | No (last version, 2018) | Yes (Apple Silicon and Intel) |
| In any program | Yes | Yes |
| Voice control of the computer | Yes, highly developed | No |
| Transcribing recordings | Yes | Yes, locally |
| Voice training before use | Not needed, according to Nuance | Not needed |
| Citing articles as you dictate them | No | Yes, full official text |
| Purchase model | Licence with no published price | 22 to 29 €/month + VAT |
| Try before paying | Ask the reseller | 14 days, no card |
Public information from each maker, reviewed on 12 October 2026 (the sources are at the end). Nuance does not publish prices on its website: it refers you to its sales team, and its catalogue varies by country; confirm it before you sign up.
Where Dragon wins
There would be no point in writing a comparison where the one who signs it wins at everything. These are the three things where Dragon is still ahead, and if any of them is critical for you, your answer is Dragon:
Controlling the computer by voice
Opening programs, navigating menus, moving the cursor, running complex macros with one command. Dragon has spent decades polishing that and there is no possible comparison: ablalo dictates text, it does not operate your computer. For someone who cannot use a keyboard or mouse for physical reasons, this is not a preference, it is access.
The dictation recorder ecosystem
The classic law firm workflow (the lawyer dictates into a handheld recorder, the recording goes into a queue and someone reviews it and sends it back) is built around Dragon and the professional hardware that surrounds it. If your firm works like that, with dictation recorders, transcription queues and support staff, that machinery runs more smoothly in the Dragon world.
Macros and custom commands
Templates called up by voice, fields that fill themselves in, automations on the document workflow. Dragon has years of head start there.
Where ablalo wins
Spanish and Spanish law
This is the underlying difference. ablalo has been built in Spanish for Spanish legal work: it recognises more than 30,000 legal terms out of the box (procedural, commercial, criminal, employment), learns your firm's proper names and acronyms, and when you name an article it puts the full official text in the document. You say «artículo 1 de la Constitución Española» (article 1 of the Spanish Constitution) and the article appears, complete and word for word, without searching for it.
Transcribing the hearing without uploading it to any cloud
ablalo also transcribes recordings you already have (a court hearing, a witness statement, a meeting with the client) and it does so on your own computer. That second part is what matters: the usual alternative for transcribing a hearing is to upload the file to a cloud service, and there you are handing a third party the full recording of a proceeding. With ablalo the file does not leave the computer.
Mac
If your firm runs on Macs, this ends here. Dragon has had no Mac version since 2018.
The numbers
Nuance does not publish the price of Dragon Legal or Dragon Professional on its website: both are requested from its sales team. ablalo is 22 euros a month on annual billing, or 29 euros a month, plus VAT. The relevant comparison is not one figure against another: it is what happens three years from now. The home edition of Dragon in Spanish was frozen at version 13, and that is why it is worth checking whether the product you buy is still being developed.
Where your voice goes
In ablalo the audio is transcribed on your own computer: it is not uploaded to any server. When you use the Assistant mode, which rewrites and adjusts the text, only the text travels, and it goes to a European AI, encrypted and without being used to train any model. It is set out in detail in the privacy policy (in Spanish).
With any tool (this one included) the question you have to ask is the same, and it is developed in client confidentiality and the GDPR when using AI in a law firm: where it is processed, who the data processor is, whether it leaves the EU and whether it is used for training.
So, which one?
Without beating about the bush:
- Dragon, if you usually work in English, if you need to operate the whole computer by voice, if you transcribe dictation recorder recordings every day or if you already have a firm workflow built on it that works.
- ablalo, if you draft in Spanish, if you work on Mac or Windows interchangeably and if what you need is for the draft to come out done as you speak.
And if you come from Dragon 13 in Spanish, hanging on to a ten-year-old version because you couldn't find a replacement: that is exactly the gap ablalo was made for.
Sources: Nuance, Dragon Legal, Dragon Professional in Spain (in Spanish) and Dragon Professional Individual data sheet (in Spanish). Checked on 12 October 2026; the catalogue and conditions may change.
Do you want the full background on what happened to Dragon in Spanish and what other options there are? It is in Dragon NaturallySpeaking in Spanish: what happened and what to use today and in the comparison of dictation software for lawyers.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a Spanish version of Dragon Legal?
Nuance does not offer Dragon Legal on its Spanish website: it lists it on its United States and German websites. In Spain only Dragon Professional v16, for Windows, is listed, and the home range in Spanish stopped at Premium 13, now discontinued. If a reseller offers you Dragon Legal in Spanish, ask for written confirmation from the maker about the language coverage before paying.
Does Dragon work on a Mac?
The last version for Mac was Dragon for Mac 6, from 2018. The current versions, Dragon Professional v16 and Dragon Legal v16, are only for Windows 10 and 11. For a law firm that works on Macs, Dragon is not a viable option today.
How much does Dragon cost compared with ablalo?
Nuance does not publish the price of Dragon Professional or Dragon Legal on its website: it refers you to its sales team. ablalo is a subscription of 22 to 29 euros a month plus VAT, with a 14-day trial and no card.
What does Dragon do that ablalo doesn't?
Dragon includes highly developed voice control of the computer and command macros, and it carries with it an ecosystem of professional dictation recorders and deferred transcription workflows it has been part of for decades. ablalo does not control the computer by voice: it focuses on turning what you dictate into text that is already drafted and on transcribing recordings locally.