WhisperLiveKit: Open-source, self-hosted real-time speech-to-text and speaker diarization toolkit with a FastAPI server and web interface, suitable for meeting transcription. oTranscribe: A free, open-source web app that eases manual transcription of recorded interviews by integrating media playback controls beside a text editor. This comparison weighs them on pricing, features, and everyday workflow fit.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist WhisperLiveKit when self-hosted real-time meeting transcription with speaker labels matters most, and oTranscribe when academic and qualitative researchers transcribing fieldwork or oral-history recordings matters most. Trial each on a few real meetings before you commit — the better fit usually shows fast.
Open-source, self-hosted real-time speech-to-text and speaker diarization toolkit with a FastAPI server and web interface, suitable for meeting transcription.
A free, open-source web app that eases manual transcription of recorded interviews by integrating media playback controls beside a text editor.
WhisperLiveKit is an open-source, self-hosted toolkit for ultra-low-latency real-time speech-to-text and speaker diarization. Rather than naively running Whisper on each audio chunk, it uses state-of-the-art simultaneous-speech research for intelligent buffering and incremental processing, which preserves transcription quality while streaming results with minimal latency. The project ships a complete backend built on FastAPI with WebSocket support, an OpenAI-compatible REST API, a Deepgram-compatible WebSocket protocol, and a simple, customizable HTML and JavaScript web interface that captures microphone audio and streams it to the server. It supports multiple ASR backends including Whisper variants, Voxtral, and Qwen3-ASR, covers 200+ languages with translation, and includes real-time speaker diarization and voice activity detection to reduce processing overhead. It can handle multiple concurrent users on a single backend and is distributed via PyPI with Docker images for both GPU and CPU. Licensed under Apache 2.0 and actively maintained into 2026, the project explicitly lists meeting transcription, accessibility tooling, and podcast or call transcription with speaker identification among its intended use cases, making it a practical building block for private, on-premise meeting transcription pipelines. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
oTranscribe is a free, open-source (MIT license) web app, created by Elliot Bentley and maintained by the MuckRock Foundation, that takes the pain out of transcribing recorded interviews. It runs in the browser on desktop computers and places an integrated audio or video player alongside a text editor, so you can pause, rewind, and fast-forward your recording using keyboard shortcuts without taking your hands off the keys or switching between apps. It is built for journalists, researchers, oral historians, and students who type up interviews and recordings themselves. Rather than using automatic speech recognition, oTranscribe assists manual transcription: you listen and type, inserting interactive timestamps (Ctrl+J) that you can click to jump back to that moment in the media. Your transcript autosaves to the browser's local storage, and audio files never leave your computer, keeping work private. Finished transcripts can be exported to Markdown, plain text, or oTranscribe's own .otr format, or sent to Google Drive. Rich-text formatting and adjustable playback speed are supported.
Best suited for
WhisperLiveKit is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); oTranscribe is open source (open source). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | WhisperLiveKit | oTranscribe |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Real-time streaming speech-to-text with low latency over WebSocket | Integrated audio/video player next to the transcript editor |
| Standout feature | Real-time speaker diarization to distinguish multiple speakers | Keyboard shortcuts to pause, rewind, fast-forward, and adjust playback speed without leaving the keyboard |
| Team usage | FastAPI backend with OpenAI-compatible REST API and Deepgram-compatible WebSocket protocol | Clickable interactive timestamps that jump to the matching point in the media |
| Integrations | Multiple ASR backends (Whisper variants, Voxtral, Qwen3-ASR) and 200+ language support with translation | Automatic saving to browser local storage with transcript history backups |
| Languages & capture | Included customizable HTML/JavaScript web interface and Docker images (GPU and CPU) | Export to Markdown, plain text, .otr format, or send to Google Drive |
| Best-fit workflow | Voice activity detection and multi-user support on a single backend | Local, private processing - audio and transcript never leave the user's computer |
WhisperLiveKit
Choose WhisperLiveKit if you need self-hosted real-time meeting transcription with speaker labels — strengths include fully open source (apache 2.0) and self-hostable for private, on-premise transcription.
oTranscribe
Choose oTranscribe if you need journalists typing up recorded interviews for articles — strengths include completely free and open source under the mit license.
WhisperLiveKit
oTranscribe
It depends on your workflow. WhisperLiveKit is strong for self-hosted real-time meeting transcription with speaker labels, while oTranscribe is strong for journalists typing up recorded interviews for articles. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
WhisperLiveKit is a free tier with paid upgrades and oTranscribe is open source. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
You can — some teams pair them when each covers a different part of the meeting workflow.
More head-to-head comparisons involving WhisperLiveKit and oTranscribe.
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