AI · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Whisper v3 API
I'm working on making it easier to use open-source AI models by providing simple APIs. Last week, OpenAI released Whisper v3, which showed improved performance across all its 100+ supported languages. We tried to optimize it as much as possible to be able to offer it for $0.0028 per minute (vs $0.006 on OpenAI). I hope it's helpful for someone: https://www.lemonfox.ai/apis/speech-to-text
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Whisper v3 API launched in 2023; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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Hi HN, OpenAI recently released a model for automatic speech recognition called Whisper [0]. I decided to reimplement the inference of the model from scratch using C/C++. To achieve this I implemented a minimalistic tensor library in C and ported the high-level architecture of the model in C++. The entire code is less than 8000 lines of code and is contained in just 2 source files without any third-party dependencies. The Github project is here: https://github.com/ggerganov/whisper.cpp With this implementation I can very easily build and run the model - “make…
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 3
WhisperAPI▲77$0.15/hr audio transcription API powered by OpenAI Whisper
2022 · whisperapi.com · its alternatives →
- 4
I wanted to share our new speech to text model, and the library to use them effectively. We're a small startup (six people, sub-$100k monthly GPU budget) so I'm proud of the work the team has done to create streaming STT models with lower word-error rates than OpenAI's largest Whisper model. Admittedly Large v3 is a couple of years old, but we're near the top the HF OpenASR leaderboard, even up against Nvidia's Parakeet family. Anyway, I'd love to get feedback on the models and software, and hear about what people might build with it.
Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Lightning V3▲311Add AI Voice & Chat Agents directly to your website.
Apr 2026 · smallest.ai · its alternatives →
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Free AI transcription: convert video and audio to text, translate into 120 languages, download SRT, VTT, ASS or TXT, or export the video with subtitles on it.
2022 · freesubtitles.ai · its alternatives →
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Lemonfox.ai▲133Human Like AI Voices API – At a Fraction of the Cost.
2025 · lemonfox.ai · its alternatives →
- 8
WhisperFusion builds upon the capabilities of open source tools WhisperLive and WhisperSpeech to provide a seamless conversations with an AI chatbot.
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 901
Hey HN! I've been working on a side project to create an audio transcription API based on the OpenAI whisper model. Sign up link: https://whisperapi.com I tried to make the API really easy to use and get setup with. Also, because the Whisper model is so good, turns out I can offer the service for about 75% cheaper than what seems like the industry average. I'm always looking to make improvements, so would appreciate any feedback anyone has!
2022 · whisperapi.com · its alternatives →
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A few years ago, right after high school, I decided to try to make a simultaneous translation app for Android as a side project, it took longer than expected (about 2 years) and I had to make a lot of compromises (I had to use Google's API and therefore make users use a developer key because at the time there were no free solutions for speech recognition and translation that had good quality). At the end of university, I decided to pick it up again and finally, using OpenAi's Whisper for speech recognition and Meta's NLLB for translation (with both running locally on the phone), I managed to…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Hi HN! Last year the project I launched here got a lot of good feedback on creating speech to speech AI on the ESP32. Recently I revamped the whole stack, iterated on that feedback and made our project fully open-source—all of the client, hardware, firmware code. This Github repo turns an ESP32-S3 into a realtime AI speech companion using the OpenAI Realtime API, Arduino WebSockets, Deno Edge Functions, and a full-stack web interface. You can talk to your own custom AI character, and it responds instantly. I couldn't find a resource that helped set up a reliable, secure websocket (WSS) AI…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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The most expressive Text to Speech model ever
2025 · elevenlabs.io · its alternatives →
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Generate English subtitles for videos in any language
2022 · its alternatives →
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Hi HN! Since the launch of JigsawStack.com, we've been trying to dive deeper into fully managed AI APIs built and fine tuned for specific use cases. Audio/video transcription was one of the more basic things and we wanted the best open source model at this point it is OpenAI's whisper large v3 model based on the number of languages it supports and its accuracy. The thing is, the model is huge and requires tons of GPU power for it to run efficiently at scale. Even OpenAI doesn't provide an API for their best transcription model while only providing whisper v2 at a pretty high price. I…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
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OpenWispr▲190100% local open source AI speech-to-text model
2025 · openwhispr.com · its alternatives →
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WhisperUI▲120Most affordable text-to-speech and speech-to-text service
2024 · whisperui.com · its alternatives →
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This project is a Windows port of the whisper.cpp implementation: https://github.com/ggerganov/whisper.cpp Which in turn is a C++ port of OpenAI's Whisper automatic speech recognition (ASR) model: https://github.com/openai/whisper The implementation has no dependencies, usually much faster than realtime, and should hopefully work on most Windows computers in the world.
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Chat with AI▲129Chat with 15+ AI models, web-enabled, file analyzer
2024 · krater.ai · its alternatives →
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Fast, accurate, free audio & video-to-text converter
2024 · accuratescribe.ai · its alternatives →
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From speech to actionable insights with flexible pricing
Dec 2025 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 24
Stop guessing your AI costs
May 2026 · costlens.kipps.ai · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →