Whisper

OpenAI's open speech-to-text baseline
Speech (STT / TTS)Speech-to-text modelMITRuns locallyPythonIntermediate
🛡 Published security advisories
A high count usually means the project is heavily examined. A low count usually means it is little examined — not that it is safe.
No public activity signals for this tool — it has no open repository we can measure.
Olud Pulse ⓘ ★★★★★★★★★★ /100 signals tracked
🐳 Docker pulls 📦 PyPI downloads / month 📦 npm downloads / month 🚀 Latest release ·
Visit website →View on GitHub

What is Whisper?

Whisper is OpenAI's open-weight speech-to-text model and reference implementation, widely used as the baseline for self-hosted transcription.

Why people choose Whisper

Whisper at a glance

CategorySpeech (STT / TTS)
TypeSpeech-to-text model
LicenseMIT
Runs locallyYes
Built withPython
Skill levelIntermediate
Best forthe reference baseline for transcription

Open-source alternatives to Whisper

Other open-source speech (stt / tts) tools worth comparing:

faster-whisperWhisper, much faster and lighterWhisperXWhisper plus word timestamps and diarizationPiperFast, local neural text-to-speechCoqui TTSDeep-learning TTS with voice cloningBarkText-to-audio with voices and effectsF5-TTSZero-shot voice cloning that actually convincesKokoroTiny 82M TTS with astonishing qualitywhisper.cppWhisper in pure C/C++, runs anywhereOpenVoiceClone a voice and control its emotionStyleTTS 2Human-level speech synthesispyannote.audioKnow who spoke whenSilero VADDetect speech in audio, instantly

Whisper head-to-head

Whisper vs faster-whisperWhisper vs WhisperXWhisper vs PiperWhisper vs Coqui TTSWhisper vs BarkWhisper vs F5-TTSWhisper vs KokoroWhisper vs whisper.cppWhisper vs OpenVoiceWhisper vs StyleTTS 2Whisper vs pyannote.audioWhisper vs Silero VAD

FAQ

Is Whisper free?

Whisper is free and open-source (MIT license), so you can use, self-host and modify it at no cost.

Can I run Whisper locally?

Yes. Whisper is designed to run on your own machine or server, keeping your data private.

What is the best alternative to Whisper?

Popular open-source alternatives include faster-whisper, WhisperX, Piper. See the comparisons above to choose.

Explore more open-source AI

Browse the full directory of open-source AI tools, models and projects — updated daily.

Browse all tools →