Head to head · Audio · updated Oct 15, 2026
Whisper vs AssemblyAI
Whisper scores 84 to AssemblyAI's 31 on public evidence for speech-to-text transcription, and they rank #1 and #2 there. Both are free to start. Numbers below are the same public signals the ranking uses, recomputed nightly — nothing here is sponsored.
Whisper
OpenAI's open-source speech-recognition model that transcribes and translates audio in dozens of languages, locally or via API.
+ Free, runs fully offline, and remains the accuracy benchmark that most commercial transcription services are measured against.
− No speaker diarization out of the box, it hallucinates text during silence, and large models are slow without a GPU.
AssemblyAI
A speech-to-text API with diarization, sentiment, chapters and an LLM layer for summarizing transcripts.
+ Strong accuracy plus built-in audio intelligence (speaker labels, chapters, PII redaction) and LeMUR for asking questions of a transcript.
− No consumer app, and per-hour pricing adds up on high volumes compared with self-hosted Whisper.
Side by side
public evidence| Whisper | AssemblyAI | |
|---|---|---|
| Evidence score / 100 | 84 | 31 |
| GitHub stars | 110,580 | closed source |
| Hacker News stories, 30d | 15 | 8 |
| Release-feed mentions, 30d | 1 | 0 |
| Last activity | 0 days ago | – |
| Pricing | Open source · Free (MIT); hosted API $0.006/min | Free tier · Free credits; then per hour of audio |
| Platforms | cli, api, mac, windows, linux | api |
| Maker | OpenAI | AssemblyAI |
Which one?
Pick Whisper if
- you want the stronger public evidence (84 vs 31)
- you want open source — self-host it, read it, fork it
- you need it on cli, linux, mac
- a bigger GitHub community matters (110,580 vs 0 stars)
Best for free local transcription.
Pick AssemblyAI if
Strong accuracy plus built-in audio intelligence (speaker labels, chapters, PII redaction) and LeMUR for asking questions of a transcript.
Best for developers building transcript analysis.