Compare speech-to-text models

Compare
MeasureFish Audio Transcribe Stream 1Soniox STT-RT v5
  1. Overall WER2.21%3.02%
  2. Pipecat WER1.90%2.54%
  3. Ocular WER2.78%3.92%
  4. TTFT P50730ms1.20s
  5. TTFS P50123ms38ms
  6. Measures won4 of 51 of 5
Lower is better on every measure. The check marks the better value.All 171 comparisons
WER · Word error rate
Share of words the model got wrong: replaced, missing or added. Lower is better.
Pipecat Dataset
1,000 short public clips from Pipecat's STT benchmark dataset.
Ocular Dataset
8 recordings from 4 real phone conversations, licensed from Ocular.
TTFT · Time to first text
How long after the audio starts streaming until the first words appear.
TTFS · Final-text delay
How long after the caller stops until the full transcript arrives. A voice agent waits for this before it replies.

Any two of the 19 models, head to head on accuracy and speed, measured the same way.

Last updated Methodology by Dileep Chagam

Every comparison

Fish Audio Transcribe Stream 1

NVIDIA Nemotron 3.5 Transcribe

Reson8

Cartesia Ink 2

GPT Realtime Whisper

AssemblyAI Universal 3.6 Pro

AssemblyAI Universal 3.5 Pro

Google Chirp 3

Speechmatics Linden

Google Chirp 2

Soniox STT-RT v5

Smallest Pulse

GPT-4o Mini Transcribe

Deepgram Nova-3

Deepgram Flux English

Deepgram Flux Multilingual

Inworld STT-1

Gradium

GPT-4o Transcribe

Speech-to-text model comparison FAQ

How do I compare speech-to-text models and APIs?

Choose any two models to compare word error rate, time to first text, and final-text delay from the same recordings and test pipeline. Lower values are better for every displayed metric.

Which speech-to-text model is the most accurate?

Accuracy depends on the audio and dataset. Use the Pipecat and Ocular word error rates separately, because a model can rank differently on clean clips and real conversations.

Can I compare Deepgram with AssemblyAI?

Yes. Select the tested Deepgram and AssemblyAI models to compare accuracy and streaming latency under the same conditions, including direct model-version comparisons.

What matters besides word error rate?

Voice agents also depend on how quickly partial text arrives, how soon the final transcript is available after the speaker stops, whether text streams during speech, and whether the provider returns usable output consistently.

Test your voice agent the same way.

Cekura runs these simulated calls on your agent and scores every one.