LOADING DATASHEET
GROUNDED IN REAL HUMAN CONVERSATIONSYOUR BENCH
Whisper
▲ HOT◆ OPEN
by OpenAI
OPEN WEIGHTSLOCALVOICE TO TEXTTRANSCRIBE AUDIOSPEECH RECOGNITION
RANKED #18 OF 101 IMAGES · OVERALL #163 OF 493 RANKED · VIBE SCORE 5.4 · 11,235 VOICES ·
COPY BADGE pastes a README snippet with the rank SVG.
An audio transcription tool that turns spoken words and recordings into written text.
HAPPY6.9
424 mentions
SAD8.1
948 mentions
VIBE TRAJECTORY
26 weeks · 13,846 voices in this window
HOLDING UP
Recent vibe is steady. No clear fade in the crowd.
HOW TO USE IT
Open weights. You can use a hosted service, or download it and run it yourself, free.
RUN IT ON YOUR OWN MACHINE
Open weights: download Whisper once and it's yours. No subscription, no rate limits, works offline.
1.55B parameters for large-v3 (FP16 weights ~3.1 GB, Q4 quantized ~1 GB, with tiny at 39M parameters)
- BARE MINIMUM
Raspberry Pi 5 (8GB) or basic quad-core CPU laptop
8 GB RAM
~$80whisper.cpp tiny/base models on CPU, ~2x real-time transcription
- SWEET SPOT
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB
12 GB VRAM
~$250 USEDfaster-whisper large-v3 in FP16 or INT8, ~15x real-time transcription
- FULL POWER
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 24GB
24 GB VRAM
~$1750batched large-v3 FP16 high-throughput audio pipelines, ~40x real-time transcription
LEARN HOW TO SET IT UP
RUNS INWHISPER.CPPFASTER-WHISPERMACWHISPERBUZZPINOKIO
WILL MY BOX RUN WHISPER?
The three cards above are researched picks. Search the machine you actually have — we only say yes if it should reply at a usable speed, not just load the weights and crawl.
HARDWARE PICKS & PRICES ARE RESEARCHED FROM THE LIVE WEB AND REFRESHED AUTOMATICALLY. TREAT THEM AS BALLPARK, NOT GOSPEL.
WHAT CAN YOU ACTUALLY DO WITH IT?
Everyday jobs on each of those rigs: how long Whisper takes, and how good the crowd says it is at that kind of work.
| THE JOB | BARE MINIMUMRaspberry Pi 5 (8GB) or basic quad-core CPU laptop | SWEET SPOTNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB | FULL POWERNVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 24GB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Make an imageone picture at normal settings | —★★★★★ | —★★★★★ | —★★★★★ |
STARS ARE THE COMMUNITY SCORE FOR THAT KIND OF WORK, DOCKED FOR HOW SQUASHED THE WEIGHTS GET AT EACH TIER. A DASH MEANS NO SPEED WAS RESEARCHED FOR THAT RIG. TIMES ARE COMPUTED FROM RESEARCHED SPEEDS. BALLPARK, NOT GOSPEL.
WHAT THE INTERNET SAYS
Users love that Whisper delivers great transcription results. However, many find it slow or expensive, and it can hallucinate text when dealing with background noise.
8862 POSTS · 2373 COMMENTS · GITHUB · REDDIT · DEV.TO · BLOG · HACKER NEWS · LEMMY · DEV FORUMS · BLUESKY
PEOPLE LOVE
- Results look great (6 mentions)
PEOPLE COMPLAIN ABOUT
- Outages, errors, or limits get in the way (92 mentions)
- Refuses or lectures more than people like (53 mentions)
- It can feel slow (17 mentions)
- People find it expensive (10 mentions)
TOPIC BY TOPIC
- Working when you need itA SORE SPOT
17 thumbs up · 92 thumbs down
- Saying no too muchA SORE SPOT
4 thumbs up · 53 thumbs down
- SpeedMIXED FEELINGS
16 thumbs up · 17 thumbs down
- PriceA SORE SPOT
4 thumbs up · 10 thumbs down
- How results lookMOSTLY POSITIVE
6 thumbs up · 3 thumbs down
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
- FROM GITHUB >
“Whisper: preserve pre-protocol worker crash diagnostics instead of WORKEREXITEDWITHOUTRESULT.”
- FROM GITHUB >
“Refuse a non-UTF-8 Whisper model path instead of panicking.”
- FROM GITHUB >
“Instant then accurate: Web Speech first, Whisper over it.”
- FROM GITHUB >
“fix(asr): give crash-isolated Faster-Whisper results a chunks list.”
- FROM GITHUB >
“Cheap AI accuracy wins: checklist marker, Whisper spelling hint, no-speech gate (R7-10a, R7-10b, R7-10c).”
- FROM GITHUB >
“[free] [Bug] Whisper transcription enters severe repetition loops and hallucinations ("Grazie", sentence repetition) on long videos.”
- FROM GITHUB >
“Scope item 2: would a teacher-forced Whisper check ("did they say these next words?") end hands-free takes better than Moonshine and the fuzzy live tracker?”
- FROM GITHUB >
“Fix Whisper hallucinating on silence and non-speech sounds in hands-free mode.”
LOOKING FOR AN ALTERNATIVE?
Other models the crowd has fully reviewed, starting with images models like this one.
Flux
Midjourney> SOURCES (12)
- REDDIT · 2026-08-20 · 432 UPVOTESNVIDIA releases NemotronLabs VoiceChat 11B, an open full-duplex speech-to-speech model
NVIDIA releases NemotronLabs VoiceChat 11B, an open full-duplex speech-to-speech model
- REDDIT · 2026-01-03 · 243 UPVOTESI built a personal "life database" with Claude in about 8 hours. It actually works.
I built a personal "life database" with Claude in about 8 hours. It actually works.
- REDDIT · 2026-04-22 · 171 UPVOTESA plugin that lets Claude Code watch videos; image + audio
A plugin that lets Claude Code watch videos; image + audio
- LEMMY · 2026-09-21 · 151 UPVOTESOpenSubs: I built a subtitle generator that runs Whisper in the browser, so the video never gets uploaded
OpenSubs: I built a subtitle generator that runs Whisper in the browser, so the video never gets uploaded
- REDDIT · 2024-06-18 · 142 UPVOTESSends shivers down your FU##ING spine.
Sends shivers down your FU##ING spine.
- REDDIT · 2026-07-09 · 126 UPVOTESComplete Guide: Using OpenRouter for NSFW model, and providers that allow it
Complete Guide: Using OpenRouter for NSFW model, and providers that allow it
- REDDIT · 2024-02-04 · 98 UPVOTESSillyTavern 1.11.3 has been released
SillyTavern 1.11.3 has been released
- REDDIT · 2026-02-20 · 90 UPVOTESSometimes you just want to be a side character... Import Character Card Sandbox - Living World Update and a Thank You!
Sometimes you just want to be a side character... Import Character Card Sandbox - Living World Update and a Thank You!
- REDDIT · 2026-09-12 · 90 UPVOTESSola V1.1 (Quick Update~)
Sola V1.1 (Quick Update~)
- REDDIT · 2026-10-17 · 85 UPVOTESFish Audio Drama 3 says it needs a 48 GB NVIDIA card. My 16 GB Radeon disagrees.
Fish Audio Drama 3 says it needs a 48 GB NVIDIA card. My 16 GB Radeon disagrees.
- REDDIT · 2023-11-26 · 71 UPVOTESSillyTavern 1.10.10 has been released
SillyTavern 1.10.10 has been released
- REDDIT · 2025-10-05 · 68 UPVOTESWhat actually is "slop"?
What actually is "slop"?