If you write steno in the United States, you almost certainly use one of two programs: Eclipse, from Advantage Software, or Case CATalyst, from Stenograph. Reporters can be tribal about this, so let me try to be fair. Both are serious, capable tools that have produced millions of pages of accurate record. Here’s a straight comparison for 2026 — and where I think both still leave money on the table.

Overview

Both are mature, Windows-based desktop CAT programs covering the full job: realtime translation, editing, dictionary management, and transcript production. Case CATalyst comes from Stenograph, which also makes the writers many reporters use, so the hardware-and-software story is tightly integrated. Eclipse comes from Advantage Software and is known for deep customizability and a famously engaged user community.

Pricing

Neither is cheap, and neither posts simple public pricing — you’re generally looking at a license plus ongoing maintenance/support to stay current, often bundled differently through dealers or alongside hardware. The honest summary: budget for a real investment and for recurring costs, and ask specifically what an upgrade path costs over several years, because that’s where the true number lives.

Learning curve

Both are steep, and most reporters learn whichever one their school taught and stay. Eclipse tends to win praise for how far you can customize it to your brain; CATalyst tends to win praise for a structured, guided workflow and the Stenograph ecosystem around it. Neither is “easy” — they’re professional tools for a professional skill.

Format and dictionary support

Both produce the standard deliverables reporters and firms expect — certified transcripts, ASCII, e-transcript/PTX, PDF — and both support RTF/CRE for moving steno dictionaries. That interchange format matters: it’s your insurance against lock-in, and it’s the thing to test before you ever consider switching either direction.

Agency compatibility

Agencies live with both. Scopists and proofreaders generally work in whatever the reporter uses, and reputable agencies handle mixed rosters. In practice, the friction isn’t the CAT program itself — it’s everything around it (scheduling, exhibits, billing) that neither program really owns.

Support quality

Different models, both with fans. Stenograph offers a large, structured support organization and the convenience of one vendor for hardware and software. Advantage has a reputation for responsive support and an unusually helpful peer community. Your mileage varies by dealer and by how you like to get help.

What both get right

Reliability where it counts. Decades of refinement in realtime and editing. Deep respect, earned, from the reporters who depend on them daily. Don’t let anyone tell you these are bad products — they aren’t.

What both leave on the table

Modern, cross-platform software — Windows, Mac, and web — instead of a Windows-only desktop that has effectively kept the Mac out of the reporting field altogether. Transparent pricing you can read on a website. And real attention paid to everything that happens around the transcript, which today is scattered across a stack of disconnected tools.

That gap is exactly where DepoStack is being built: not to out-feature Eclipse or CATalyst on steno translation, but to be the modern, open platform the category never got — with the reporter still the authority on the record. Join the founding-member waitlist.