#4141st of 51 in VoiceFor voice, speech and music

speech_recognition

Python library wrapping many speech-to-text engines and APIs behind one interface

Documentation ↗ Website ↗ Repository on GitHub ↗

Stars: 9k
License: BSD-3-Clause
Last commit: Sep 2026
Last release: Jun 2026
Language: Python

Stars, last 29 weeks+91

8,904 on 1 Apr 20268,995 on 21 Oct 2026

From GitHub's daily star counts.

Checked 22 Oct 2026 on GitHub.

Overview

SpeechRecognition is a Python library that transcribes audio from files or a microphone through a common Recognizer API. It wraps offline engines (CMU Sphinx, Vosk, Whisper, Faster Whisper) and cloud APIs (Google, Azure, Wit.ai, Houndify, IBM, OpenAI, Groq, Cohere). Install with pip, using per-engine extras.

Who it is for: Python developers adding speech-to-text to scripts or apps

Strengths

One recognizer interface across offline engines and a dozen cloud APIs
Offline options: Sphinx, Vosk, Whisper, Faster Whisper
OpenAI-compatible self-hosted endpoints (vLLM, Ollama) work via OPENAI_BASE_URL
Per-engine pip extras; FLAC bundled on x86 Windows, Linux and Intel macOS

Weaknesses

Microphone input needs PyAudio, which requires PortAudio setup on Linux and macOS
Google Cloud support is V1 only; V2 is not supported
README documents no streaming transcription, only phrase and file recognition
Sphinx needs a specific PocketSphinx build; repository packages are outdated

What it needs

GPU optional
Needs PyAudio (microphone), PocketSphinx, FLAC encoder (non-x86 systems), Vosk models, Cloud API keys
Models: CMU Sphinx, Vosk, OpenAI Whisper, Faster Whisper, OpenAI Transcription API

Also in Voice

See all 51

Also in Voice
Rank	Project	Score
1	voicestudioDesktop app for voice cloning, dubbing and dictation with local speech models80.5k starsAGPL-3.0	83 out of 100
2	xiaozhi-esp32ESP32 firmware for a voice chatbot with MCP device and cloud tool control31.7k starsMIT	80 out of 100
3	whisper.cppC/C++ port of OpenAI Whisper for local speech-to-text transcription54.5k starsMIT	78 out of 100
#4	VoiceboxLocal voice studio for cloning, TTS, dictation and agent speech58.2k starsMIT	71 out of 100
#5	buzzOffline desktop app for transcribing and translating audio with Whisper22.1k starsMIT	71 out of 100

How to choose

Latency decides usability for voice agents; check the end-to-end numbers the project publishes.
Most quality models need a GPU; CPU-only setups are slower and limited to smaller models.
Check language coverage and whether models are downloaded at build or at first run.

Health

Releases: 9 in the last 12 monthsLast one 127 days ago
Top contributor: 95% of commits86 of 91 in the last 12 months
Security advisories: NoneOn GitHub, in the last 12 months
PyPI package: No known advisories ↗ (opens in a new tab)speechrecognition 3.17.0, the latest version
OpenSSF Scorecard: 4.0 out of 10 ↗ (opens in a new tab)Run by OpenSSF on 19 Oct 2026

Read from GitHub, deps.dev and OpenSSF on 22 Oct 2026. Bots and coding-agent accounts are left out of the commit counts. Not part of the score: how we check.

License in plain words

BSD-3-Clause Permissive

Use it at work: Yes
Change it and rebrand it: Yes
Sell it or host it for others: Yes

Your part: Keep the notice, and do not use the authors’ names to promote your product.

A plain summary, not legal advice. Read the license on GitHub ↗ (opens in a new tab)

Where to run it

Vast.ai ↗ (opens in a new tab)Rent a GPU by the hour from a marketplace of hosts.
Clore.ai ↗ (opens in a new tab)A GPU marketplace; its August 2026 price guide puts an RTX 3090 near $0.09 an hour.

Referral links: if you sign up through one, we get a commission. They never change a rank.

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Setup for other apps

#41 of 51 in Voice on Archestack, as of 22 Oct 2026.

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