# AssemblyAI vs whisper.cpp

**Leader by Vioscale score:** AssemblyAI

| Attribute | AssemblyAI | whisper.cpp |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 80.2 (60% (medium)) | 68.8 (24% (low)) |
| activity.commits_last_30d | - | 100 |
| adoption.dependent_repos | - | 18 |
| adoption.github_stars | - | 53,196 |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true}` | `{"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | A platform providing speech-to-text APIs for both pre-recorded and live audio, voice agent capabilities, and audio analysis features like speaker identification and sentiment analysis. Serves millions of developers with focus on accuracy and scalability. | An open-source library that provides speech-to-text transcription capabilities, ported from OpenAI's Whisper model. It supports various hardware accelerators and runs on multiple platforms with a command-line interface. |
| integrations.count | 5 | - |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Semantic Kernel .NET"},{"name":"Vercel AI SDK"},{"name":"OpenAI GPT-5.6 Luna"},{"name":"OpenAI GPT-5.6 Terra"},{"name":"Google Gemini"}]` | - |
| language.primary | - | C++ |
| license.spdx | - | MIT |
| market.availability | `{"primaryMarkets":["US","GB"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"web":true}` | `{"cli":true,"ios":true,"mac":true,"linux":true,"android":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"usage","plans":[{"free":false,"name":"Async Speech-to-Text","summary":"$0.37/hour","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"hour"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.37,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"Pre-recorded audio transcription","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Real-time Speech-to-Text","summary":"$0.47/hour","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"hour"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.47,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"Live audio stream transcription","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Sync Speech-to-Text","summary":"$0.45/hour","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"hour"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.45,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"Same-request transcription for short clips","contactSales":false}],"addOns":[{"name":"Speaker Diarization","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"hour"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.12,"currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"LLM Prompting","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"hour"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.05,"currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"Voice Isolation","components":[{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"hour"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.1,"currency":"USD"}]},{"name":"SSO","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":199,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}]}],"summary":"From $0.37/hour for async transcription. Free tier available.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.assemblyai.com/blog/lower-latency-new-pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-19T21:32:28.755Z","startingPrice":{"unit":"hour","amount":0.37,"currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month"]}` | `{"type":"open_source","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://github.com/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-19T21:33:54.410Z"}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | freemium | commercial |
| pricing.price_level | low | free |
| pricing.starting_price | `{"amount":0.37,"currency":"USD"}` | - |
| pricing.transparent | yes | yes |
| release.cadence_days | - | 15 |
| release.history | - | `[{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.9.3","date":"2026-08-20T11:39:36Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.9.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/b4938","date":"2026-08-20T11:33:19Z","type":"stable","version":"b4938"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.9.2","date":"2026-08-04T15:31:37Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.9.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.9.1","date":"2026-06-19T05:53:19Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.9.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.9.0","date":"2026-06-17T10:19:21Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.9.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.8.7","date":"2026-06-16T10:59:32Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.8.7"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.8.6","date":"2026-06-02T06:22:27Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.8.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.8.5","date":"2026-05-29T12:07:04Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.8.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.8.4","date":"2026-03-19T15:08:38Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.8.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.8.3","date":"2026-01-15T11:27:48Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.8.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.8.2","date":"2025-10-15T08:32:18Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.8.2"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.8.1","date":"2025-10-12T10:18:45Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.8.1"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.8.0","date":"2025-09-30T18:44:14Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.8.0"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.7.6","date":"2025-06-25T13:50:49Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.7.6"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.7.5","date":"2025-04-02T14:34:08Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.7.5"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/b2365","date":"2025-03-31T15:04:32Z","type":"stable","version":"b2365"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.7.4","date":"2025-01-06T13:16:31Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.7.4"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.7.3","date":"2024-12-18T16:15:19Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.7.3"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.7.3-pre","date":"2024-12-09T09:34:50Z","type":"prerelease","version":"v1.7.3-pre"},{"url":"https://github.com/ggml-org/whisper.cpp/releases/tag/v1.7.2","date":"2024-11-19T16:55:56Z","type":"stable","version":"v1.7.2"}]` |
| reliability.sla_pct | 99.9 | - |
| reliability.status_page | yes | - |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.hipaa | yes | - |
| security.pci | yes | - |
| security.scorecard | - | 5.1 |
| security.soc2 | yes | - |
| security.vulnerabilities | - | `{"count":0,"source":"https://advisories.ecosyste.ms/api/v1/advisories?ecosystem=go&package_name=github.com%2Fggerganov%2Fwhisper.cpp%2Fbindings%2Fgo&per_page=100","last_12m":0,"max_severity":null}` |

## Capabilities (Speech To Text)

| Capability | AssemblyAI | whisper.cpp |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Capabilities** |  |  |
| Real time streaming | - | - |
| Speaker diarization | - | - |
| Custom vocabulary | - | - |
| Fine tuning | - | - |
| Word timestamps | - | - |
| Punctuation formatting | - | - |
| Pii redaction | - | - |
| Vertical model | - | - |
| Offline on device | - | - |
| Open source | - | - |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T17:12:35.172Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*